Day 3416 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 9:58 NIV

Made clear from the very start, this faith will indeed lead to a life meant to come apart from the comforts for which we’ve come to become accustomed.

For life as lived here is a life that’s left here. And yes, this is at this point pretty much an ongoing topic of discussion in these devotions, but friends, that is simply because the cause is worth the costs that we don’t really care to consider as we’re content with the content of this invent of an idea in which we can walk this well as we leave this world and not have to endure the fact that to leave this world is to lose this world. And the problem with that is that if we don’t know that such is demanded, we will run when it comes.

Because we’re a people who are used to this only way of life we’ve ever known to live, and it is one in which we win and want and wish for what is within this world as such defines our most basic beliefs.

For here it’s still that to believe is to see and so we know only to trust in which we know we’ve seen, seeing then nothing of faith as faith doesn’t relent upon the conceding of all this content of our comfort, not even that provided by this sense of sight which has inspired us senseless in regard to the substance of something so sudden as our not seeing the leaving part of living. And yet that is the entirety of the walk Christ won within this world. From the time He could, we was found wandering closer to His Father, our Father.

In fact, the Bible recounts a story from when He was only 12. His parents had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and as after it was over, they’d left to return home. Little did they know, our Lord had left their leaving and stayed behind to spend some time in the house of His Father. Somewhere along the way they realized that He’d been left behind, and after frantically searching, three days later they found Him only to hear, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

He’s really got this thing about three days. Anyway…

The very next verse, Luke 2:50 specifically, defines the dilemma we might well share with those parents He’d scared. “But they did not understand what he was saying to them.”

Indeed, some days it still seems that we don’t understand what He’s still saying to us. Perhaps that is merely because much of what He said was said in parables, riddles recalling the right divide between those few with eyes to see from the many who couldn’t see past their sight. And alas, I fear we fail the same for we tend to try, and for us, well, to try is to welcome defeat as our insufficiency insists to show itself whenever and wherever we allow ourselves to imagine beyond ourselves for even a moment. And well, that is a pretty particular problem for our pride, as we just hate the idea of not succeeding at something.

And yet this path onto which we’re called is one in which the largest success any are to find is that in which we lose and leave behind an entire lifetime we’ve lived and likely lived well. And well, it’s that loss of a life we’ve lived and loved in love with a world in which we’ve won the way to live it well behind those blind who pretend they see enough to know enough to light the way to where all have gone and from where few will stray.

Yes, this place knows perfectly how to live a life in this place. We are most powerful in that regard. For we’ve come to become a people of profit, of platform, of popularity and the prosperity of it all. We’ve managed to make for ourselves idols of ourselves and thus we sell whatever hint of a soul we’ve held. Yes, that is in fact the way to win at life as lived down here. Just do as everyone else does, love what everyone else loves, hate whatever they hate and crave to have whatever they have so that you can hold that hope as held down here.

As if that is the best of hope to have, one held inside something so trivial as to be held for what is but a single chime of a clock ticking forever.

Yet that’s the dilemma, for this clock as ticking here won’t tick forever. For this life ends, talk about it a lot. Talk about it so much because Christ came to remind us of such. That there is indeed life beyond this death we fear, this death we live, this death we love. Indeed, we do seem to love this life, and what with all the comforts and concessions, why wouldn’t we? Why would any hate this? Why would any trade this? Why should any crave to lose this, leave this, let this go and go along the rest of this ride without an anchor against this turning tide?

For how else might we ride this ride than with the wealth of worth we’ve won within this world? Indeed, what is life to be if we live to lose what we’ve come to love? What then will be left if we leave it all? Yes, friends, such is most definitely a question we should most fervently, feverishly consider. What then will be left if we leave it all? Because we will, just a matter of when, a gift we shouldn’t have, but also one we shouldn’t leave ignored either.

Because it did demand His death for us to have this decision, this intention, this invention of that invitation to pull on out of this stagnant station and head on home before the rivers rise and hell comes calling. For perhaps that’s a bit of irony we miss in and of itself, for if we sell off everything we’ve ever had, well then we’d not even have a phone to answer the devil’s call now would we?

Indeed, you see, we see Christ tempted in this way within this world out in that desert into which He still calls us to come. The devil tried everything he could to inspire Jesus to give up everything He couldn’t. But He didn’t. He didn’t resolve to assume a life might revolve around the wealth of a world which was already His. See, that’s the devil’s trick, convinces us that he can give us what Christ already has. Life, wealth, health, joy, meaning, purpose, the promise of all perfected forever once in that home not here. Indeed, the devil tries to tell us that home is here.

And thus we think we’ve so much to lose as to live a life should find one having a home, right?

Well, not necessarily.

For you see, the Son of man had here no place to lay His head. He walked this world with less of a home than even that of foxes in their dens or birds in their nests or lions in their lairs. He lived this life as lived in this world with such a firm focus on the faith and His Father that He had no time to toil for trying to have something in this place He knew He was leaving. No, rather He came to leave it all upon what is only this battlefield of life.

And thus perhaps it’s only when we see this life as a battle and this land as a trial that we can understand that we should be happy to lose what we’ve lost to live a life we cannot live forever.

Because that is the gift of faith’s hope in that home as held inside of Heaven. It’s this most grating reminder of all we’ve done under the sun to say that we care not that such is a promise as we’re none to content to invent our own. Yes, we have each lived an entire lifetime trying to convince ourselves and those around us that we can do this on our own, by ourselves, for ourselves. And we’ve sold so much of ourselves to have what we cannot keep that He had to come to help us see beyond the rust we’ve won and the dust we’ve held.

And it is a right affront to be sure. For we’ve all, again, managed to comprehend the way of life this world loves to live. We’ve chased the dreams, craved the things, watched the scenes and rehearsed the lines that have left us living well within this world. We each have a whole passel of possessions and priorities as purchased in this place, from this place, for this place.

But yet in Matthew, Jesus Himself reminds us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and that when done that way, well, all this other stuff will be added to us as well. For perhaps the point isn’t meant to be our seeking our wants but rather serving His will. Not about our gain but rather His glory. Not a matter of making sure we’re satisfied or successful but instead that He is known and honored.

Because while we can gain much in this world, there is nothing here more valuable than His victory over our defeat, and that is something that all must know because and before all of us go into that day in which our lives are weighed. For upon that moment when arrive there, what we had or didn’t have here won’t matter anymore. But it will matter how much time and attention, worry and intention we gave to the contrary consideration. No, it won’t matter what we had in this life as left behind, but it will matter how much time we lost to gain what is left.

And that is why Christ came to not build a house or have a career or please a bunch of people who would agree themselves His friends. He came not to be served, but rather to serve, His words not mine. He came not to win but to lose that we might we share in both, winning but by losing. Yes, He came to lay down His life so that we could see through our blind eyes that the life He lost was to help us lose the life that held such a cost.

Because perhaps only by His pain could any of us see that while certain things do indeed seem to matter, and too that most don’t do much to deny or debate their addendum to life as lived and lost down here, perhaps not all that much matters more than praising the One who’s provision has provided not only our every actual need but also a brand new hope held inside the promise of peace eternally won within the grave into which He gave us the chance to share the leaving of a life for the finding of one that doesn’t end.

Yes, perhaps nothing in this life as lived in this world, not jobs or jokes, movies or materials, possessions or misplaced priorities, perhaps none of it matters so much that it’s not worth leaving behind in exchange for the chance to see where His strange path through that grave actually goes.

And so, as even the Bible instructs in Luke chapter 14, beginning in verse 28, may we sit down and consider the cost. Contemplate as to whether we’ve enough to build this belief. Yes, maybe we should truly think hard and consider deep so as to see if we are willing to lose and leave what it takes to live a life lost in a love so strange that it exists most evidenced within the deserts, the gardens, the backstreets, among the mountaintops, deep within the graves. For that is where Christ is most often found. Near God, and thus away from the world.

Almost as if to show and say that there is along this path more loss than gain, at least in terms of all the worldly stuff for which we’ve lived to have all this time.

Because He of all knows just how little this life lasts, and thus how pointless so many of these personal or popular pursuits we tend to prioritize. Yes, He knows better than all just how lost we’ve lived this life, for He lost His, laid it down so that we might find ours again. Because the truth is that, again, life does not consist in an abundance of possessions, but rather in the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things unseen, the insistence that we see what He saw as He so clearly saw something both in us and up ahead that was worth dying for.

Surely it must be something more than just a fancy house, a fast car, a cool career or an otherwise affluent lifestyle. For He lived without even a house to call home, no place to lay His head. And nor did He waste His time trying to win such a thing as everything He knew He’d soon leave behind.

Why do we still insist to do differently? Why do we live as if we cannot possibly do without? Why do we seem adamant that any aspect of this life be perfect as purchased from the plans paved by man? Yes, why do we live like the world and ask our faith to conform to such a wasted wish as our want to be content and comfortable while we’re here, other than if we’re still not so sure that we won’t be for at least a while more?

Friends, this entire passage in Luke is one which calls our attention to the cost of following Christ. You see, it’s not quite so easy as some try to make it seem. Simple? Yes. Straightforward? Pretty much. Easy? Not really. For the fact is that in this faith, He must be the only priority. Not main. Not top. Not first. Only. Because His path is simply and yet entirely, eternally too different for us to retain any of our prior priorities or past concerns. It all must go, going out of business, fire sale kind of assurance.

Because whoever wishes to keep anything of this world can only have less of what isn’t in or of this world. And too, whoever loses all this place, well, they’ve only more heart and hope to be filled by His grace. Thus we find yet again another decision to make. What matters most? What cost does this deserve? What price are we willing to pay? Not to earn to our salvation but rather to show the world that He has indeed died to give it?

What are we dying to that says we are going to our home rather than leaving it behind? For the gravity is that such is a life that will preach a message that the whole world needs to hear before the whole world suddenly isn’t here. For Scripture says that in fact it will be sudden, in the blink of an eye as it were. Some will be left and some will some leave. Some welcomed into Heaven, many told to leave. Some sad at what they leave, a few overjoyed by what they see.

Indeed, what do we hope to see upon that day? Shall it be our homecoming, or rather just heartbreak at the one we’re leaving?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold