Day 3424 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

John 16:20 NIV

For to walk within a world without a concern for their content of character nor the concessions or consolations toward which they continue to concede, such is bound to bring about a perfect calamity.

How else might two opposing outcomes come together but within a tumultuous turnout in which we’re turned out of the world as one does with a coat or a blanket, only this with and because of a belief? Indeed, a life lived within a world walking the other way from where the hope of Him has us heading, it’s just inevitable that we’re invited to witness the wrath of a wicked world from a weakness we’d never agreed to know we had before. For such is a matter of utmost denial, our weaknesses.

And yet the strangeness of this faith finds for us a ferocity to confess them so that we might hide no more in them nor beyond them nor allow them be hidden as so many so dearly attempt these days.

Yes, these days this world is making a right display of all manner of disagreeable evidence of a humanity entirely too haughty. We walk amongst a people purchasing pride’s profit assuming it proving that they themselves are these statues of immense worth, untarnished valor, unequaled ability and a sort of socialized strength that allows them to see themselves as these idols we’ve each become before. Indeed, we’ve gone far into idolatry that the ideal anymore is to be our very own idol.

Is there any other way of defining all this selfish finding or fathoming or figuring out all the what’s and when’s and how’s of what we ourselves assume to be our best life?

That is what so many here are in fact living though, give credit where credit is due. Yes, so many people are living their very best life what with all the utter lack of self-control, personal decency and moral consideration or any evidence of any ethical effort given both to and from ensuring such moral intensity is indeed able to define a lifetime, if not an identity. No, such concerns are clearly not considered within this culture of chaos and its choosing always to lose everything from life to love within the undertow of a world running on an overflow of arrogance and ego.

I might take this time to point out that there is a rather stern ‘but’ amongst all that we see so many assuming a best life lived within a life we’re all to leave. It’s that we’ll leave. For that is indeed the very way of all mankind, of all creation in fact. For in truth, God long ago set the time of man and none shall again surpass it, such is why the heaviness of death and the glaring denial of our mortality.

Alas, and as an aside, it seems that illiteracy is a very dangerous dilemma indeed, for to be mortal should as well inspire one to seek to be moral, but I suppose that our fear of our mortality has morphed into a fear of morality as well. One letter makes a massive difference it seems!

Or at least such is the scene shown within the sights and sounds of this world going down to drown within the dregs of the debts we all already owe.

Talked about that plenty of late, for today it’s altogether something much a similar vein, but a different name all the same. It’s in regard to loss and life and the two intermingling as they’ve done since time itself was set in motion, long even before we began all this commotion here between the oceans of both time and tide. Yes, the gravity of an existence is that it’s here not permanent. But what’s sad is that there’s true beauty in that.

For through Christ we’ve the gift of getting to choose what we lose and when it’s lost.

Indeed, from that whole ‘best life’ buffoonery mentioned above, we see a very befitting bellowing of both blessing and woe from He who is the Way toward the Life, or rather away from this life as lived as if it’s our best life. Either way, both paths converge upon our exit from this existence. And yet His patience, as some, many in fact, so grievously equate as weakness or distance or disinterest, it’s rather but a chance for us to come to the senses we’ve had so socially singed.

For Christ, in Luke 6:20-26, recounts and thus registers a perfectly applicable list of blessings and woes depending upon who someone is and where they hope to someday go. And it is a passage so perfectly poignant that I can’t help but posit the whole point within this post for today as it defines this idea in mind that I feel so frantic to share today. That we are but here today and perhaps gone tomorrow, but both from what and what to? What ends and when?

“Looking at his disciples, he said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”

Indeed, verse 23 goes on, “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.”

And here comes that most pronounced and perfect ‘but’ I mentioned above in regard to best lives lived here. Verse 24: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

Yes, for here everything false is favored whilst the truth is villainized and ostracized and cast aside as it stands in front of this world saying that such things as done by the many might shouldn’t be so merrily committed against the mercy of the Messiah who came to make a way for us to come away from what is but the death of us. For Christ came to seek and save the lost, those looking for life within either themselves or the world in which we’re stowed for a time.

No, He came to remind that there is another life, another home, a bigger hope, a greater gain than all this world might have to give. And yet such is all we’ve all thus far sought to settle for, even so violently to the very point of fighting for. Yes, we’ve come so far in our dishevelment that we despise one another, most of all those freaks who speak the truth which calls attention to all we’re doing that death says shouldn’t be done.

For that is all that death is, just a reminder that a day is coming upon which we’ll be answering some questions so hard to confess that we have nothing at all to say to account for how we’ve lived so lost in sin.

Alas, a world content to remain unchanged, unchallenged, unchastened, well, such is one in which little will change as so many choose to assume they needn’t even consider it. No, here people simple repeat the irreverence of the past and pretend themselves progressive simply for the popularity and prosperity such dishonesty achieves anymore.

And as a world so wicked as this has so clearly and callously become continues to go ahead unchanged, well, such means quite the sight for those looking with eyes to see all that’s done under this sun seeking the hope of a life lived under and for and in and with the Son. Yes, it’s heartbreaking to witness what wickedness does when one’s trying and striving and fighting and praying and breaking and asking that He make a Way when there seems none to be found. It’s downright miserable.

Yes, because the evil of these days as spent within a world still so clearly unwilling to turn to Christ and learn how to love and serve and live and surrender as He did, it’s grievous, brings grieving. And thus we learn both how and why these days should be hard. They should break our hearts. We should be angry at the state of the world and the clear insistence it has to continue the descent. We should ache at the atrophy we witness others hold high as if a trophy touting some sort of sordid accomplishment.

Yet they did the very same with Christ’s belongings as He bled for their very forgiveness. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” When will we come to terms with the fact that since He’s said all that needed to be said, we do know what we do?

See, we talked the other day about Christ’s confrontation with the Pharisees. “Jesus said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.’” John 9:41. And that’s the same testimony we’ve each told within this idea that we know the way to both where a ‘best life’ is to be found and too how to live it once we find it. And what makes matters worse is that we live in a world filled with those who tell everyone else all about their ideal life and just how perfect they assume it to be.

And all the while, there are a few outside looking not in but on as we wait for what is promised to last longer than any sort of ‘best’ which may be found within a life that’s leaving us faster than we can agree we’re leaving it. For such not at all conducive to this socially abusive belief that our ‘best’ is somehow able to best His will. That is indeed how people live these days, as if their ideas are above and beyond both His best and too His wrath as won in our ongoing rejection of His will to lead the way.

But that is the way the world has chosen, and again, it’s pretty adamant upon not changing.

Thus it comes to the grief such will give to those who can’t give in, won’t give up, not on this gift He gave. For any and all who hold their hope well beyond the horizon of this life, well, this life will then be hard. As we learn what love is by daily feeling what love does as we delve deeper into what Love did for us to live, we’ll learn only to see the darkness of the death we’ve lived and still others still love. We will come to see sin as something so widespread and wasting that we writhe in hatred of what it’s done and is doing still to those around us.

Yes, as we close in on Christ through prayer and petition and asking Him daily for our daily portion, we will see the substance of so many things which shouldn’t even be imagined let alone acted up. We will witness and likely experience the impossibility of darkness blending with light, feel for ourselves the disquiet of being yoked anywhere close to equally with who we no longer want to be.

And yes, all of this will be and become an almost perfect pain, a most punishing persecution without perhaps even a word being said or anything being done. For this world needn’t say anything, do anything, threaten anything nor act upon such attempts to quench our faith, for just watching through opened eyes so many so joyfully bounce upon and bound along the wide road which leads to their demise, it’s a misery unimaginable. One so jarring that it should inspire us to start trying.

I personally believe that such is why God leaves here us so long. It’s not to punish us for the sins we’ve done ourselves, done to ourselves, for such are in Christ forgiven. It’s not really to test our faith as He’s always known those who are His from the many who wouldn’t agree to be. Nor is it a matter of making sure we’re worth the welcome He won, as He’d have not died if that place weren’t already prepared.

No, I contend He leaves us here to try and help others see through the blindness of this whole idea of a best life being lived here. For, again as He said above, if here we have our reward, then none will be waiting for when here we’re no longer found.

And thus the moving He makes inside which opens blinded eyes to begin the breaking of hearts that asks us to do something, say something, tell someone that there is something better than all the best this world can offer. And what’s more is that as we are hated for speaking that truth and as we do find persecution levied against us as we love the world around us in both Spirit and in truth, we will then find ourselves in an increasing share of what Christ endured on our behalf.

Perhaps that’s why He says that “the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

Because here the love of most will grow cold as the lies of the enemy grow to be told louder and louder and louder inviting so many to lose more and more and more. And we out here upon the outskirts of a world we’re waiting to leave, well we’ve now only a front-row seat to watch the end come rolling in upon all those who, at this point, aren’t even acting like they don’t know it’s coming. No, anymore people are to the point in which they’re saying, and I’ve heard this myself in videos I’ve seen, “let us go to hell, please let us go.”

Yes, and so the lines remain as they were all along, leaving us only to see just how few there are to be found along this narrow road toward life. And it is again a most grieving sight to be sure. For we are sure as to how this ends, but in that we find the hope that keeps us going as the end keeps nearing. It’s that this does indeed end, and thus for us who do believe and are trying to keep from falling away back into who we know we’ve been before, all that’s left to end is the misery.

All that ends for a Christian is the suffering of a life spent loving a world that knows not what love is. All that ends for a follower of Christ is the frantic fear felt for those we’re trying to help see the light of Jesus before the chance leaves lost those who might say they don’t care right now. Yes, all of this life that ends for us who are in Christ and fighting every day to find some way to do something that helps someone, all that ends is our hearing that they don’t care and our having to watch as they live to prove they really don’t.

And upon that day when this is all done, then we will find our joy. Then we will find our hopes fulfilled. Then we will find His faithfulness found in full, finding us in His presence and all the goodness that means for all of forever. Yes, at the end of this battle we will begin to be at rest from the war we waged against the world that is fine fighting back for the sins they love so much that they’ll fight to ensure they’re not left or lost.

But that’s just it, this world and the wickedness within it are willing to fight for their idea of some ‘best life’, meaning thus that they’re willing to fight for their beliefs. Indeed, as proven in the crucifixion, it seems they’re even willing to kill their beliefs.

Difference is that we’re willing to die for ours.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold