Day 3472 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 8:19 NIV

For such a time in such a place amongst such a people with such a tale to tell that it will perhaps set another soul on fire for their Father having found out they’ve too been found from within this downfall.

Indeed, I do find that I can’t help but believe that each of us are endowed by our Creator with a certain unalienable, unchangeable, irrevocable, irremovable immensity as defined by a faith that seeks to otherwise redefine us. Because I can’t quite imagine that we don’t all feel such novelty needed as that afforded by this faith that’s found us or is rather still hammering away upon the door of our hearts asking us to let in the light of love that is the Life. But since such is something of a certain substance, it’s not at all something that many are willing to welcome.

Perhaps they’re waiting for someone else to look weird first.

Allow us therefore to introduce ourselves…

To be a child of the One True King is an honor unlike any other. For it’s one not fond of titles or territories as we’ve both already, and in a measure this world cannot muster. It isn’t built upon this otherwise commonly considered necessity of such things as popularity or prosperity as again we’ve both in plenty. Nor is this identity begging to be proven or publicly welcomed via the praise and applause of people who cheer only those willing to settle for the same whatevers that so many here are so clearly settling for anymore.

No, to be a child of the One True King grants a freedom not found upon this ground nor afforded by any of the glittering gold mined within. It isn’t concerned with such worries as worldly want nor widespread wish. It needn’t be understood, verified, validated, justified or given a stay of social judgement. Rather we welcome this world’s wrath, laughing at such silly audacity to assume we might actually flinch at the mere suggestion of whatever mankind still believes to induce fear. Indeed, we have anymore but one fear and it isn’t found here, well, at least outside of what we’re doing here.

Indeed, that is the joy, the fear, the excitement and the elation as evidenced inside of a share of what is here considered in every way weird. For our walk begins in the grave rather than spending years marching sheepishly toward it. We walk by not the sight that so many are so reliant upon as we can see that it’s not what we see that matters but rather just knowing that we are seen. We consider faith the only foundation upon which a life can actually be lived.

We believe freedom found beyond doing only what we’ve already lived so enslaved to do. We count all things as loss knowing that one day all things will be lost. We speak in words that to many make no sense, at times ourselves being among those many at a loss for understanding. We glory in giving away rather than getting, for we find that it is truly better to give than to receive.

All because we believe that we’ve received all that we could ever possibly need.

And we thus renounce anything that asks us again unto an easier path as we cannot imagine such laxity as that found along the wide-open and well-trodden which leads only to nothing.

No, we have no mind for worldly commonalities as they are daily dwindling within our considering. For we’ve here had so much of what’s here to have and having had so much of what’s only here had, we have no longer any hope as held inside something that is housed here in this life that we’re all bound to leave. Yes indeed, we even find this strange jubilation at the mere mention of our losing something more for the sake of Jesus who is He who freed us and frees us further every moment it feels.

Alas, there does come some difficulties within this new identity, and I suppose that they’re supposed to be what so many see as reasons to refuse losing what we’re all losing anyway. Because this world cannot allow itself to admit such reality as a human’s mortality. Folks here have strayed so far from the straight and promising that they’re anymore only willing to wade through whatever is closer, safer, more societally accepted or assumptive of something of some sort of success.

Yes, this world is lost in so very many ways that so very many indeed assume themselves being right where they belong. And it’s this very dissolved delight against which we’re here to call attention so as to introduce God’s intervention. For that is His intention, this contention against mankind’s conventions and inventions of idolatry and gluttony and greed and things otherwise not worth the mention.

For we all know well the ways in which we waste away inside these days in which we’ve a life lived but yet a life for which we seek still. And yet that confusion is one of such depth of delusion that we’ve all otherwise decided to deny it altogether. Because for us to delve those depths would be to do the death of that life we think we’ve lived amongst so many who live it in such love with it that they’ll resort to the sort of refusal of such truth as it altogether instantly defines their insanity.

And yet that insanity is perhaps the perfect position for us to launch this counter offensive, which is indeed in many ways offensive. For this truth we carry as if a torch into this earth so scorched that in fact every soul is singed beyond safety or solace, it’s one that despises the lies that are so welcome inside so many all around. This Word we recount tells the story of such a loss of sanity that all of life itself has become rather unsanitary.

The changes we seek and embrace ourselves are the sort that seem sordid and scary to those seeing safety inside the numbers of those walking with them along the wide-open. The repentance which begets such new beginnings is believed to be unbecoming of what this world’s become, and rightfully so. So much so that any and all who speak to its necessity are usually and instantly seen as enemies living for what is considered an alien sort of enmity.

For this world knows the gravity of enmity as we’ve all in fact lived our pasts pretending it had no such weight nor such wrath. That is why we speak so many lies is it not? For lies are light, not in terms of luminescence but rather in regard to weight. Lies lift a struggled spirit in ways that are altogether easy and thus seen and assumed as friendly. Lies meet a person where they are and agree to leave them there, only feeling a little better about such betrayal for a moment.

Yes, the deception of dishonesty is done with such delight that it’s almost all we do anymore, just lie to one another seeking to avoid whatever manner or measure of hardship that we might.

Because we’re all afraid. Of something. Of many things in fact. Each of us have a list a lifetime long of things that scare us to death, scaring us from death as it were, at least for some. For death is unto all the heaviest of conversations and conversions as it diverges from our dreams for things and scenes seen and shown inside this here home that we’ve come to make for ourselves, of ourselves. Indeed, such the only life here lived, that lived for self.

A most perfect pretense.

All because something of such normality as our mortality seeking to avoid such mention of such limitation, well it’s poured the perfect foundation for a foreigner to begin their share of this sharing of this good work He’s begun and keeps on doing. For having an entire world so likewise lost for what are widely very few reasons, such affords us aliens an opportunity to make widespread reaches seeking, as He calls them, a few fishes.

Indeed, we are called by Christ to be fishers of men, and wouldn’t you know it, but in fact it just so happens that man has sectioned themselves off into these cozy little cultures comfortable among the numbers. You have some that are afraid of death, and to them we’ve the chance to speak of new life, eternal life as achieved for all who humble themselves to opening the door of their heart unto the Savior who’s calling them home. Others are afraid of their many mistakes being made known, a perfect opportunity to share about the enormity of our Father’s forgiveness as found upon that cross the Son took for us.

Still others worry about not having all they want. To these we can tell the tale of the prodigal who lost all they at once had and yet was welcomed back to a banquet so lush and lavish that it overwhelmed the wants we thought were needed. Some worry in a similar way about their not getting their way, which affords us the chance to tell them of a testimony of our having gotten our way before, and just what it all amounted to in the end. Others fear failure, making them candidates for the completion of Christ having said that our salvation is in Him finished.

Many make light of the reality of sin, and again, to them we’ve this story to point of the Son who suffered for those sins that many here assume insignificant.

The point being in all this that while mankind is truly so mangled and misinformed, we in Christ have all the tools we need to be whatever someone else may need to see, to hear, to realize they might actually recognize. Because whatever the individual discrepancy or delusion or past decision, the fact of the matter is that our Father forgives. Our Father heals. Our Father helps. Our Father strengthens. Our Father humbles. Our Father gives hope. Our Father reminds us of home. Our Father loves. Our Father hates all that isn’t love.

And because of all He does, all He is, all we thus are in Him, all He thus gives us to do, we are in just the right place at just the right time amongst just the right frame of mind to help someone somewhere hear something about what He’s done for them to make them new, granting us all the chance to make a difference to the tune of leaving a lost life behind in exchange for the better days lived in the light of the Son. For only when a life is lived out in the light is a life to be finally free from all the hiding and horrors of a life that we’ve all lived in the darkness of disbelief.

The biggest challenge to our chance to do something with such lasting meaning as telling someone about our Savior and the things from which we’ve been saved is that we’re in a world that’s made it clear that this story isn’t welcome here. This story, this opportunity has been mocked, rejected, refused, misused, subdued, confused, abused and let loose thanks to some wolves using it for their own glory or gain. Some have used it to inflict pain, others to judge the stains of those over whom they sought to lord their own hope for worldly power.

And this story having been so widely misunderstood and vastly unwelcomed, it has become a veritable minefield of hatred and disgust that’s left us amongst a number few, seemingly leaving us to assume there’s very little we can do that could even plausibly amount to anything worth the risk promised along the way.

But friends, what else are we to do with this message that’s come through in our own lives again and again and again? Are we to simply keep this hope of Heaven all to ourselves? Are we to agree with mankind’s insistence that we speak not the freeing substance of this story of salvation? Are we supposed to just bide our time and hope He comes back so that we don’t have to look anymore upon those we’re afraid to help?

No.

No, for all of creation is indeed waiting eagerly for the children of God to be revealed because those reborn in Christ carry now a light that ignites hope so many never knew they’ve always had. This truth we carry, though a double-edged sword indeed, we have to understand has one side that cuts deep while the other sets free, and that both can only happen simultaneously. The message of the Messiah will seem impossible to everyone, but the seed His Name is will be planted in some only should we share it with all.

It’s not on us to decide nor determine who we’re here to help nor who would never welcome such aid. We are not the doctor, just the receptionists. We are here only to try and schedule as many meetings as we can for as many as we can as soon as we can by telling all that we can to all that we can about all that He has and all that He is as promised and proven within all that He is to us and all that He’s done in us.

And thus we are all of us messengers, pastors, preachers, teachers, disciples, dignitaries, emissaries. We are all, who are in Christ, now called to be what this world needs regardless of whether or not they’re ready to hear the truth which obliterates our wants.

We cannot keep this world waiting any longer, because we just don’t know how much longer any of us have. You and I might have another hundred years down here. Your boss, your neighbor, your cashier, your cousin, your professor, your hairdresser, your dress maker, your lunch lady, your mailman, your bus driver, your pizza delivery guy, your barista, your little sister, your best friend, your worst enemy, they might not have the same. Some might be down to days.

How much longer can we wait to do something, say something, tell someone about their Savior?

Who cares how we look? Who cares how awkward it feels? Who cares if we don’t really know enough Scripture to make it seem like we know what we’re talking about? Who cares? So much of life has become a pack of lies that is meant to keep us living the way this world has decided life is supposed to be. But see, this world has never had that right though as that’s God’s alone. He defines why we’re here. He defines who we are.

So who are we?

If we are who we claim to be and we do believe what we claim we do, well then it’s time to be what this world needs to see because it’s what God deserves to see as well. We have been given the chance to play a part in the forever of someone else, maybe even many someone else’s. Let us begin and do so unashamed, unafraid, unwilling to quit, unable to run. Because we’ve done the opposite enough, and the world hasn’t gotten any better.

And no, the world might not get any better should we start trying now. But we know what happens when we do nothing. Let’s see what might happen should we do something.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold