Day 3474 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 8:30 NIV

Thus perhaps our purpose is not proven within public praise nor personal priority but rather within the pursuit of a promise which was previously purchased that proves us here on purpose.

For the fact is that God does nothing without reason as He is reason as much as He is truth and life and love and looking for all of us to be remade into that image that He at first created us to remain so as to reflect His majesty into this mankind of depravity so that the hope He is might reach some seeking such whilst finding none. Because hope is something all of us strive to find in this life, and yet we’ve come to assume it found within always the hollowest of places.

Because to house hope inside something held here merely contends that this world has hope to offer, but what is hope if it’s so limited as to be left within a lifetime we’ve all but already left behind?

Is that not exactly what our pasts have already proven? For we’ve all indeed hoped within a great many things, dreams, plans, priorities, performances and within the lot of all the above we’ve in fact found the outcomes that we hoped to have, at least within many of them. And yet this seems to prove that hope held here is indeed hollow because having had our hope as won within things we wanted, for what more are we then left wanting?

Are we to believe that such things as hope and joy and peace and purpose are to be so fleeting that we feel them for but a moment before we’re back on the hunt for another hit?

Do we just not get it yet?

So much of what we’ve done and what we’ve won within those deeds done and dreams won is as of today but a memory. Does that mean hope is behind us? Having not learned our lesson to the extent in which it’s so obviously needed, we still seek hope inside things held here even today. Does that mean that hope is only ahead? Never here, not now? Are we truly to continue this cycle of highs and lows in terms of joys and hopes simply because such has become the sadly standard assumption amongst this scared society scattered sifting amongst the ashes and fragments of everyone else’s dreams for an identity to call their own?

Seems we’re plenty willing to, but thus proves that just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Because the reality in which we walk is that we’re still within a world that will continue ahead doing nothing new and thus finding nothing new and thus becoming nothing new. This world is as cold and complacent as it can be, and the problem then for you and me is that we have let this world take the lead and be the one to teach us how to walk this life well. And well, while that’s undoubtedly easy as rinsing and repeating always will be, what’s in it for you and me if all we agree to be is what’s already been or will become believed by those who believe in nothing beyond themselves?

See, that’s the overall undermining of this world in which we walk. It’s been built in just such a way, so selfish and assured, that everyone all around seeks only to be pleased in every way possible. Only the issue has become that it’s no longer mainly about people being pleased in regard to possession or prize but rather in terms of outside eyes being coaxed into seeing life the way they do so as to verify or affirm their preconceptions of self-perfection.

Indeed, seems affirmation has become the drug of the masses as such social praise seems to prove to people that they’re perfectly right in regard to everything they’re doing, which is as it always has been and that is nothing but all that they want to do for whatever selfish reason or inclination that they themselves may have determined and decided upon by themselves for themselves. We are surrounded by ears itching so badly for the lies that allow lives to be lived lost that we all anymore just agree to avoid the cost of contention.

We just go along to get along.

But where then are we going?

You see, following another via either their physical lead or their selfish demands demands that we do whatever they tell us to. And this is something that all of us have done an untold number of times in the past. We’ve all lived to please people as such is simply something we’re taught to do. But what we’re not taught to do is to reconsider where all of that people-pleasing has led us and left us. Because that is the only possible outcome of pleasing people, being left.

Because at some point we will fail to be whatever another wants us to be as we simply cannot please everyone in every way every day that we’re here. We will let someone down, say something they don’t like, accidentally let our own perspective slip and that will simply slide us right out of their acceptance. It’s again something that has happened to all of us as all of us have had friends that we did all we could to keep only to watch them leave.

What did we lose in all we had to do to try and keep what couldn’t be kept?

See, so much of society is based upon this infectious insistence upon subscription, signing up to sheepishly adhere to hearing and doing and being whatever someone else may want in order to retain that reward of their prestigious welcome. Indeed, this place has devolved into what is basically a life-long interview in which we constantly feel as if we have to impress those around us via the only manner in which we’re expected to do so, which is again being whatever they want us to be so that they can glean from us whatever they want from us, which is again nothing but affirmation and applause.

But how much longer can we bend and break into being or becoming whatever whomever wants us to be? Do we have anything left to give to a world that’s only taken all we’ve given whilst giving us nothing in return?

This is one of those verses that really ought to remind us of just how feeble and futile and simply foolish it is to live our lives pleasing people. Because what can they give us that we need? What can they take from us that we can’t live without? What have they taken that we’d kind of like back? What needs have we ignored because we were so focused on trying to be what they wanted? Have we not all in many ways forgotten who we are in all that time trying to be something else to please someone else?

I think the worry is that we’re in this world. This seems like home as it’s the closest thing we’ve ever really known. All of us have literally been here all of our lives and so we’ve nothing else by which to compare how life should be lived other than how life is lived in this place that pretty much seems like our home. And so we continue along, tap-dancing along this line of the social status quo trying to not rock the boat assuming we’ll drown should we fall out.

Or will we?

Will we drown if we fall out of the boat? Will we drown if we fall out of public approval? Will we drown should we fall away from social acceptance? Will we die if we don’t make someone like us? Will we lose our lives if we fail to impress someone at some point? Have we yet? Because we have, failed to impress someone that is. We have had those in this life that didn’t like us. We’ve said or done or become things that people weren’t ready or willing to accept or understand. We’ve all let someone down before, and so too have others let us down.

Are we so grievously wounded because of it that we’re here barely holding on to life? Or have we somehow managed to survive?

That’s my point for today. I think we’d all be completely amazed at just how little we need in this life to be happy, to feel whole, to be who we were meant to be. And oddly enough, as seen in Christ’s circle, perhaps it’s not quite the numbers game we’ve long let the world convince us it was supposed to be. Jesus ran around with 12 dudes and a few ladies hanging around on the outskirts of towns and breaking away to even be alone at times.

Do we really need to parcel out our souls to a hundred people, a thousand people, a million voices, a billion beliefs in order to be alive? Or are we spread so thin trying to please so many that we simply have no life left of our own anymore?

I honestly think we’re so used to this idea that we’re here only to please others that we’ve never known what it’s like to be us. Our only identity anymore is nothing more than this reflection of whomever we happen to be around in the moment, trying to always make another person feel perfect so that they might return the favor and help us to feel whole as well. But well, if they could or would, why haven’t they? If we’re so willing to fit their mold to make them feel whole, why do so many not do the same for us?

Friends, I’m pretty certain that we’ve been played by what is perhaps the oldest trick in pride’s playbook. For you see, pride seeks to hear only praise, to feel only approved, to be told endlessly just how amazing a person wants to assume they are. And thus pride is the entire and eternal antithesis of humility, and as in Christ humility is the ticket to life, well, then I reckon pride is nothing but the prize of death. And this is confirmed in that again none of us probably have any idea what it’s like to be us as we’ve only ever been whatever someone else has wanted.

All because we’ve always wanted to feel the way we’ve tried to make them feel. Loved. Accepted. Amazing. Impressive. Worthy. Important. Special. Seen. Known. It’s all that any of us want to feel.

Why don’t we if this world is truly all about what it claims to be about? If this world is all in on equality, equity, fairness, kindness, compassion and caring, why then are any left feeling alone, empty, afraid, forgotten? Maybe it’s because this world sells nothing but lies and we’ve all lined up to buy as many as we could afford with the souls we’ve sold to try and impress someone else.

Thankfully Christ came to redeem what all we’ve lost trying this lost cause of pleasing people. And this is proven within this verse for today. So much so in fact that maybe we can officially retire from trying to please people trying to win their approval, their acceptance, their friendship. Maybe we don’t need their approval, their acceptance, their audacious willingness to be friends with someone doing something different with their lives.

And maybe we are all called to do something different with our lives than what we’ve done with them thus far and what this world will continue to do with theirs going forward.

Because you see, if we are justified by this call of Christ, well then we needn't this world’s permission nor understanding to embrace it. If we are glorified by His having justified our call, well then we needn't seek any vain glory as our glory is now in Him, and thus we needn’t any glory from this world as He is bigger than this world and thus His glory far more important. Indeed, He calls us His, does it matter then if nobody else around us is willing to welcome us? He calls us loved, does it matter if the world hates us? He says we’re forgiven, who then can hold anything against us?

Indeed, He says that any who believe in Him, though they die, yet shall they live. And so what then can this world give or take away that can in any way change who we are or where we’ve this promise in Him to someday be?

And so you see, we find that we've all we need to be all He made us to be, even to the point of now being free from that old need to feel as if we belong where we know now we do not amongst those we may have at one time tried to please in order to make them too believe that amongst them we might belong. No, that we are justified by faith and glorified in God, this world’s just our office and we're closer to clocking out and heading home every single day.

And no, I simply do not care if that doesn't make sense to anyone as I'm just here to explain to everyone the hope I have. I'm not here to understand it for them.

And that is what we all need to understand for ourselves. We are here to serve God, to honor God, to please God in the only that any of those are even theoretically feasible. Which is by faith, which is equated as the righteousness we’ve all long since lost trying to so please the unrighteous and irreverent. And so we’ve here a choice to make, one that pretty much unravels into our choosing which call we answer: Please people or praise Jesus?

Yeah, it really is pretty much just that simple.

We can all go on ahead doing as we’ve done trying to win what we’ve apparently already won within the praise of those people we’ve lived to please and impress. But what’s the point as defined by the prize? What will we win if this world is where our wins are won? And on the other side of that coin, what will we lose if He who we love is the One who left here to lead us home to a hope that’s held just beyond here? Indeed, what do we have to lose considering what little we’ve gained trying to please people?

I get that we all feel this need to be accepted, applauded, appreciated. Again, we all just want to feel loved and seen and heard and known and welcomed. Friends, He literally hung on a cross with His arms wide open to welcome all who come unto Him and ask Him into their hearts. What more do we need?

No, truth is that thanks to Christ and all He’s done to remind us of who we are, we don’t need anybody to accept, applaud, appraise, approve, affirm, confirm, conform, validate, verify, justify or understand who we are, where we’re going, why we’re happy to leave nor what all we’re strangely excited to lose along the way. We don’t gain anything by this world cheering us on, and because God is the One who has, as seen here, called, justified and glorified those who are His, well then we have nothing to lose should this world rescind their welcome.

Take it, don’t want it, don’t need it as this ain’t home and I’ve thus no inclination to stay.

Friends, do not continue to negotiate who you are in Christ because who we are in Him is all we need to be. And since He is indeed all we could ever need, well then this world has officially lost its hold on us. Walk free my friends, we’ve all we need for the journey home!

#LeaveNoSoulUntold