Day 3473 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 8:29 NIV

Within this world so focused on being first, perhaps it’s not all that bad to be second sometimes.

Because to be first demands a degree of intuition, integrity, intelligence in that to lead the way toward something novel or new demands a sort of responsibility proven in the realization that at some point another might follow. And while we’ve become a people always leading the way toward our own wants and wishes or following others toward theirs, forsaking any sort of restriction such as said responsibility, we’ve too become all but unable to be the ones who lead this way toward what has never been anywhere near anything we’ve wanted nor been willing to risk.

For indeed, to lead is to risk more than any who might follow would have to as the one who begins something new takes upon themselves the fullness of every nuance and uncertainty demanded of a new direction.

Thus we ought to be thankful that Christ didn’t wait for us to decide this path He paved on our behalf.

No, in regard to salvation, well, such is a matter entirely alien in concept to a people so perfectly content and comfortable here inside lives so mislead that we know only misunderstanding and mischief. We’ve wandered so very far, and at times so very violently away from the Way that we’ve only known always our way as paved toward our preferences such as the avoidance of pain, the rejection of persecution, the assumption that we’re due no punishment, and too the corresponding insistence that we’re due everything delightful.

Clearly then forgetting who we’ve truly been as designed within the sheer degree of sin in which we’ve so scuttled ourselves.

Yes, it is truly incredible what an ego can manage to convince. For our arrogance has inspired us only to consider against such things as truth, morality, mortality, honestly, modesty, really just any sort of humility at all. Because I think we all know deep down that humility is in and of itself a sort of responsibility, just one that is altogether backwards from all these others responsibilities from which we’ve run thus far in life.

Humility, which is an almost unnegotiable trait of all true leaders, it’s something that demands a willingness to suffer, to sacrifice, to at times stumble and struggle often alone as, again, whomever decides to lead the way into something new is undoubtedly to be the very first to come across all issues, pitfalls, stumbling blocks and any other otherwise unforeseen calamities. Because there is no map toward something nobody else has ever found or set out to find.

Like eternal life.

That’s something of an oddity it would seem as it’s in almost every way truly an assumption we’ve all lived by in that we’ve all lived as if here we’ll not die. We all do things, chase things, crave things that perhaps bring with them a fair degree of risk, perhaps even at times not worth whatever reward we hope they might hold. And yet we embrace those risks because we’re altogether blind to the responsibility of belief. Simply because we’ve come to despise any and every hint of responsibility period.

Yes, even that demanded of belief, and thus faith, and thus life, and thus Christ who is the Life unto only those who have the faith to belief that this here isn’t all there is to all that He’s done.

Because let’s just look at what He has done. We all know the Gospel truth, a body beaten and belittled and broken upon a cross taken in kindness and compassion. We know of the crown of thorns and the blade which pierced the side allowing blood and water to flow from within this gift we didn’t understand until then, if even then, if even now. Indeed, we’ve all heard of the empty tomb and the round stone rolled first into place (where we assumed it belonged) and then out of the way into the place He planned for it to actually belong. We know of those who rushed to that place and found that stone had been moved, the tomb unsealed, the sight a shock even to those who’d heard what He’d said.

Simply because it makes no sense as to us death is lifelessness, and so once someone’s died, well we don’t expect them to move much let alone enough to unwrap themselves of the shroud in which they were sealed only to then somehow shove a giant round rock out of the way of their work which is still somehow ongoing despite His going where none of us really still have any real interest of being ourselves. All because of our perfect propensity for common misunderstanding.

Such as our assuming that we know much of anything about life having not lived it right, about death having been dead but assuming we’re not, about truth despite the lies in which we delight, about lies which have blinded eyes to the truth we now despise. No, such is the gravity of this Gospel of God’s great grace, it just proves us pretty much belligerently illiterate in terms of almost everything. And that’s pretty offensive to be honest.

So much so that sadly many will never follow along with this story to the point and purpose of why it had to be that way and has to feel this way. Because the fact is that we have to be offended if we’re to ever consider something other than our own personal opinion. And this is pretty much a dire necessity at this point as our opinions have pretty much only proven problems in our lives. So problematic in fact that everything Jesus did should have been done unto us.

Thus again the gratitude for our not going first for once.

No, God knew that should we lead the way toward where our way has chosen to lead us astray, leave us betrayed, well, we’d not find much in the way or rest or reward as, well, none of us can do what needed done. Why? Because every single sin owes a death as death is simply sin’s wage, and the horror then is that we’ve all become billionaires in death as that’s probably a pretty fair estimation to the number of times we’ve said something, done something, thought something, bought something that was only ever meant to lead us away from belief.

Question now that He’s taken our place in that grave and thus assuaged the debt we’d charged is how much longer will we choose to refrain from that belief that begins where we assume only that all of life ends?

Friends, that’s kind of the point. Because you see, Jesus came to this earth to do nothing but God’s will, definitely a first! Everything He said, everything He did, everything He taught and left us to learn was all done to accomplish God’s purpose, which is so perfect that He sent Christ to die to prove that not even death could stop what He’d intended. Thus He led the way to and through what we’d always assumed was merely a life ended. And so He did what He did the way He did so that we’d know better what to do to be found where He’s gone to make ready a place for all who do as needed to be found fully in His grace.

Thus the grave.

Because that’s where life is indeed lost, only thanks to Christ perhaps now not forever. For if we agree to follow His lead, embracing our share the sort of humility He’s shown, well then we’ll find the sort of faith that becomes willing to believe well beyond whatever we may have in the past perceived. Such as life ending or this world being the only place we’ll ever be found living or thus this way of life as lived within this world being the one by which we should agree to follow still another’s lead.

For that is basically all that any of humanity can ever truly do, just whatever someone else has. We read in Scripture that there is nothing new under the sun, especially these days when we’re basically to the point of going backwards in search of ways to progress in alternate realities such as AI and other social abnormalities. Indeed, such is the only progress we’ve been able to know for quite some time as all that we seem to grow is just our greed and gluttony for whatever already is. And thus all we’ve ever known is to follow another, be it on social media or in the drive thru line.

Maybe it’s time to reconsider who we’re following, based this time upon where they’re clearly going.

Because the fact of the matter is that much of this world is egregiously lost chasing after all manner of idiocy and idolatry. Mankind knows nothing else than to want whatever this world has, and it couldn’t be clearer that that’ll never change. Because if it could, well then it would. But alas this place is filled to the brim with people who make no qualms about their hatred of change. And so it’s safe to say that if we want something better than whatever this world is doing, defined by where all this world is destined to end up as proven in God’s Word, well then we’d better turn off this dead-end road and find a better one.

And if this sounds of any interest, well then allow me to suggest another you might find more apt to lead toward something better than hellfire and misery.

Like that of Christ. Because His path is entirely unlike all others this world’s known. Just look at where He’s proven eternal life starts! Again, the grave played such a pivotal role is His work that we still marvel at what seems still all but impossible. But isn’t that kind of needed within a belief? After all, as the Bible says, who hopes for what they already have? And so if we can hope in even the chance at eternal life, well then maybe this thing we’re living so bombarded with sin and stained by self isn’t much of a life after all.

Definitely not the kind that can last anyway.

No, there is but one way to find that life that has no end, and yes, it starts where this one ends. Has to, because again, to do something new demands something new. And well, what’s more new than the thought of life beginning inside a tomb?

I guess the difficulty in all this is that it’s both a personal matter and yet still one that we’ve pretty much no say in at all. Allow me to unravel that a bit. It’s personal in that it is something unique to everyone as my story isn’t the same as yours nor is your purpose here exactly like mine. And so it’s bound to become something of a complexity in that we’ve grown perhaps a bit too accustomed to living communally and so we’re kind of used to looking to others to make sense of our lives. And yet that can’t really work anymore because again, this is both a personal matter but also one that’s not ours to decide.

Because you’ll see here that mention of predestination. That’s basically a big word that means the result is already known. The outcome of every life is already decided. God has known those who are His from before any of us came to be. The Book of Life is already finished, and so there aren’t new names being added to it, and nor are any then being erased from it. Each of us is on a trajectory toward our God-given destiny, and so there’s really not much we can do other than take the ride that He’s began.

Where this all falls into chaos is again our tendency to let others lead us. Because the reality is that wide is the road that leads to destruction and many are walking it. And so that is why we have to start being a little more cautious about who and what we allow to influence our lives. Not because this world will lead away those who are God’s, but because the promise that Jesus had paved the way toward isn’t worth such delay as His needing to undo more misunderstandings we welcome into our minds by following a world that will never follow Him.

That’s why He came down here to lead the way, to be the Way. It was to help those who are His come to see that life here shouldn’t be lived how many here live it. It was to prove to us that belief is both a gift but always a tremendous responsibility in that if we do belief that He is the lead and that we’re only thus to follow His example, then we have to embrace discernment even though many in this world consider it judgment.

This place is doing so many things that are so vile that those doing them, leading them, leading others to join them in doing them that they’ve created ways to make outsiders look like, feel like monsters for not giving in and giving up and going along following behind their blindness leading those blinded. We’re told constantly that we’re not supposed to judge, and to a degree, this is true. The problem is that there’s this fine line between the person and the fruit.

For while we’re not here to judge anyone as if we can either justify them nor condemn them as that is by no means our place, we must judge the things people are doing because there is right and there is wrong and we’ve already spent far too long on the wrong side of that line and we cannot agree to venture over it much longer if we truly wait in increasingly eager expectation for that coming of Heaven.

I want to go home, and so I cannot live anymore doing the things that He who led the way there, who IS the Way there, said and died to prove only prevent the gift of life that He said is waiting there.

And so who are we following? What are we doing? Where are we going? Do we even care?

Friends, I know that all of us have bought this idea that we’re the ones in control of our lives and that we can thus do with them as we please. And I know that we’ve indeed done just that for as long as we can remember. And I also know that such sordid assumption of selfish freedom will continue leading people only to use their freedom as a license to sin and thus flee further from life and thus closer to death. But I believe that He knows those who are His and that He told us that most aren’t for a reason.

Wide is the road, and so we know the value of doing something different walking a different path even if alone.

My point is what if all we’ve been taught by this world is nothing but a lie meant to convince us to keep following their lead so that they don’t feel alone in their doing what they know they shouldn’t be doing? Friends, we are not here to play the clapping audience to a world demanding we cheer on their every delight within all depravity or delusion. We are here to honor God, to seek His glory, to share His story, and to thus be a light in a world that’s only getting darker.

If we can believe in Christ, can confess Christ as our Lord and Savior, well then we have a chance because the Word tells us that only those who belong to God can do so. Do not let this world lead you away from what you believe if you do believe in Christ. Because they will try, for that’s what the drowning always do, they seek something or someone to help keep them afloat. And we cannot risk being pulled under again from the only hope we have.

Because while there is a well-defined line between right and wrong, dark and light, death and life, faith and doubt, it isn’t always quite so simple as He talks of lukewarmth being loathsome for a reason. Do not let this world inspire you to quench the Spirit He placed in you to lead you toward that place where He’s gone to prepare your spot. We don’t want to miss all that He’s done, and so may we not forget all that He’s done.

For He did it all in order to be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, and thus He took upon Himself the full weight of all responsibility for leading the way toward where we’ve now this incredible hope to be. He died to give us this hope of life, and He will not lose any who are His.

Do our lives show that we know we’re His, or are we still looking amongst the ashes for our identity?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold