Day 3494 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV

And of the sudden it seems perhaps we’ve seen the proverbial dividing line that the divine has drawn so as to both give us a way to walk but also to separate the many who won’t from the few who do.

Because from down here within this place of permits and pretense it seems expected to ask permission before our doing anything that might come a wave which rocks most of the many boats of belligerent disbelief that have come to drift into this slipping asunder of every soul from the Father. And as such a socially standardized exhortation to a share of that communal indifference has come to become our share of that very blindness, we each are now able to see the many ways in which this world has waged war against this hope we now have anyway.

For that is the benefit of our relentless chasing of the unrelenting One who came to find each of us lost sheep who perhaps, now looking back, wandered away from the right crowd for wrong reasons only to now in Him wander away from this world for what are far better ideas.

See, Scripture tells us that Christ is the Good Shepherd who left the 99 to come and find we ones who’ve gotten turned around and torn apart within this world and all the ways in which its wickedness worked and works against His will. It’s a parable speaking to His desire to present the fullness of this flock that’s been given into His care back unto the Father. For, “this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” John 6:29

And so indeed, we who are in Christ are now bound perfectly within this Spiritual protection to be proven personally upon the arrival of ours at the most glorious promise to which He came to leave us so as to give unto us the Spirit which leads us toward that home along this hope that we now have that this world ain’t our home but is rather the backdrop of our sojourn from death to life along that line that He drew that calls us to do a share of what He’s done for us

Problem is that we walk amongst a very great many who have no such hope as they know no such Savior and thus cannot even begin to care to comprehend the things which are seen and shown only in and from the Spirit who is the Son who is the Father in the flesh that came to save us from the death that each of us have so dearly earned for our having only learned to care about what the world around us may think of things that the world around us knows nothing about.

Thus we see both the stupidity of our having wandered away from the 99 who are His into the world filled with the many more who are not and care not to be, but so too we also see there’s now a necessity to once again wander away from a group to which we have belonged but find ourselves all of the sudden feeling quite abandoned by. For once a soul receives the Spirit, both the world without the Spirit will not accept them anymore, and nor will those with the Spirit remain able to accept the things this world without the Spirit now does against the Spirit.

It’s one of those proverbial moments in which we’re somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place. Only in this case it’s more of our being caught between the Rock and a hard case of disgrace within a place that basically lives to spit in the face of the grace that came to take our place in that grave so that we might in that exchange our death for His life.

And so it’s no wonder that some of us will come to indeed wander off again. Only this time it’s a wandering away from the world rather than into it.

For now that our eyes are so kindly being opened to the many things that have all but sealed our eternity for the worst outcome imaginable, we’re beginning to see that the ways of this world really are the workings of a wickedness so vile that it does indeed deserve every ounce of His entirely justified wrath. Who’d have thought that those who’ve earned their fair share of such would ever be able to confess as much and in that find a courage to take a new stand against the confusions which have before defined our own delusions?

It’s truly miraculous what all God can do when we’re not standing in His way nor allowing anyone else to do the same.

Unfortunately, as we kind of mentioned for a moment yesterday, that is sadly the common way of life as it’s lived and lost within this land which lay in laze and thus in waste against this grace that took our place and unshackled our chains and changed our brains back to the factory setting that we’ve instead spent the vast majority of our lives, alongside mankind, trying to pretend we couldn’t remember or care to recognize. Problem then is that so many have so singed their common sense in regard to redemption that many here just don’t care to simply accept it as the gift it is.

No, rather most here are still somewhat dead-set on the aptly warned against gaining of the whole world at the promised expense of the soul.

Guess that’s what happens when you’ve sold so much of yourself to buy what you literally cannot afford to have at the cost of what none can live without should they lose. And as a people of what is a sore-loser mentality perfected, our pride just can’t abide by that. It’s not supposed to, which is kind of the point I’m rounding the bend to make for this posit here today.

We live in a world that clearly considers all manner and manifestation of faith to be nothing but a matter of foolishness. Perhaps it’s the humility, maybe the honesty, maybe simply the modesty which wars against our vanity as learned from a world cone crazy. Either way, the reasons don’t really matter as much as do the results. And this is actually an oddity considering how we’re such a results-driven society. Alas, I guess that we’re driven by pride more than proof after all.

And this is obvious anymore in that those of us who are in Christ can list a list a mile long of all the things He’s done in our lives for the world to read, and even given them scars and stories to see and hear. Doesn’t matter. Nothing we do, nothing we say, no matter how kind or desperate we might try to share it, if it has anything to do with faith, it will fall upon itching ears in this place. Just so happens that they ain’t itching for truth but rather the perfect opposite.

Because again, that’s just how life is down here. This world is filled with people filling themselves with this world. The collective brainwashing of society has become magnificently accomplished within a very short amount of time, compared to the expanse of eternity at least, and with decidedly few undertakings as well. For it turns out that our adversary really does know what he’s doing and he’s pretty good at it. Guess he’s not called the father of lies for nothing!

For indeed, all this collective indifference in regard to God’s reverence really takes is the making of something wrong seem normal, the justification of that stance as given within the likes of power and popularity bestowed upon those who let go and give in, and then a little bit of peer pressure placed just right to encourage the outliers to also succumb to such a heartbreaking outcome.

And we’ve all done it. We’ve all followed the herds, read the headlines, lost sleep at night worrying about what someone else may say, do, think, or assume. Because we’ve been taught that this world has some sort of ability to either render us accepted or rejected. And because they do, in a way and for a time, it just so happens that that way is within this time in which we’re alive without much beyond a childlike hope of living beyond what we’ve already known and always agreed to our share of what most assume.

But that’s just it, while we’ve shared in our share of this world’s assumptions and presumptions, seeking inside all that settling the permits for permission to be preferred and respected rather than persecuted and rejected, we’ve been shown now that such things are a bit more survivable than society has let on all along. Christ came to this world to endure the worst the world could wield, and He walked out of that tomb to prove that those who can harm the body truly cannot touch the Spirit.

Problem is that the world is still mostly filled with those without that Spirit and so they just don’t want to hear it. To make matters even more precarious though, seems they don’t want to see it either.

For I guess it’s a bit jarring to see a few of us freaks lining the fray of this world looking toward the horizon trying to see Heaven and reach for it with every ounce of our every inability to get there by ourselves. Must be quite the sight to see for those who seem to think that Heaven isn’t there and thus we’re just weird for trying anyway.

That’s why all this punishment in the forms of hatred and rejection so warmly given unto those who just want to do as the world doesn’t. It’s because this place hates those who don’t fit in and follow along. And as we’ve been called in Christ off of that wide-open spent toward damnation, well, we’re going to find out pretty quick just how much we really don’t fit. Because the reality is that we never did as we were never actually supposed to, it’s just that now in Christ we kind of lose the ability to care anymore.

And again, this world just won’t like that because they can’t understand that. And people despise what they can’t comprehend. And thus we’re going to be despised by mankind’s pride when our path diverges from theirs to the very point of our crying out in agony begging them to turn back to Christ and accept His mercy before it’s not there for them anymore. Such an urgent desperation only makes us seem all the more foolish to those many here who think all faith to be foolishness.

But here’s the point: it’s okay.

It’s okay to not fit in. It’s okay to not make sense. It’s okay to live a life that doesn’t look the lives lived by those living them for and in and of this world. That’s again kind of the point. Because we all have lived those lives, and just look at what they make you give! Look at all we’ve lost. Just the fact that we have no idea what all we’ve lost just goes to show that we cannot continue to go the way of the world toward what is only the wasting of more opportunities that many will never know.

The danger is that salvation is an opportunity that none can afford not to know. We cannot survive without His gift of the Christ. Just can’t. But we can survive without the world’s understanding that we believe in Him. We can survive without the world’s appreciation of our serving Him rather than them. We can make it just fine without this world accepting our faith or understanding that it does in fact mean so much to us that we would walk away from every worldly thing with a smile on our face and a little more hope in our hearts now that we’ve one less thing here to leave when we go.

What we need to understand is that this world will never understand that kind of thinking as it’s something done only in the Spirit. This place can’t comprehend the storing of treasures in Heaven as they don’t believe in Heaven and thus find no reason to store their hope in praise toward a place that isn’t there in their minds. Because this world still lives as if everything that’s real, right, true must fit and make sense within their minds.

But the Spirit bridges that gap between our thoughts and God’s thoughts of us.

For all our lives we’ve lived bound to this ground doing as the Romans do, thus accepting both what the Romans are and too the Romans we’ve become. But in Christ we’ve the chance to turn and become something new, something better, something bigger than just popular or normal or understood. Truth be told, I shudder at the idea of being understood in and by a place that thinks things such as transgenderism and satanism and witchcraft and whatever other devilry might be or become popular somehow makes sense.

I do not fit this world, and nor then does this world fit me. No, now that Christ has saved my life and begun the process of then changing my life from who I’ve been to who He at first created me to be, my life in Him doesn’t fit this place and this place without Him doesn’t fit my life. My life in Him is only just beginning while life in this world is passing away. So stay if you want, worry about what they think if you want, succumb to your share of the sinful scum if you want.

I’m out!

Why? Because He said I could leave. Jesus said that He was going to prepare a place for those who follow Him, and His Word even tells us a few things about what this place He’s prepared is like. And if nothing else, since the place He’s made ready offers us eternal life, I for one find no reason to live like this world chooses to and insists that I do too. Why trade forever in Heaven for a few more years feeling like you fit among the pagans?

No. Leave the dead to bury their dead. Not sorry if that sounds harsh, sometimes the truth does that to perspectives so sullied and silly after a lifetime spent listening to and worrying about and living to please a fallen society. Let His Word cut like the knife it is as it’s meant to sever us from this world that isn’t our home, and too from our worrying about what they think of these lives we live now that we live for Him rather than for them.

Friends, we have to stop trying to find or force ways to make our faith make sense to a world without a willingness to accept the truth. It’s not on us to make it seem reasonable or logical or anything else. It’s our job to live out our faith in such a way that honors God, and whatever comes of that, well, it just doesn’t really matter. Does it?

For us to live is Christ and to die is gain. Who cares what the world thinks? Will their thoughts change His promises? Will their threats overrule His protection? Can our becoming misunderstood and perhaps even violently unwelcomed within this place ruin the place He’s prepared for us?

No. So quit worrying about a world that’s not walking the same way you are. By now, most everyone has at least heard the Name that is above all others, and so we’ve all got the chance to choose what we win and when we lose. If we happen to be among the few who decide to lose now and win in the end, does it really matter what the other side thinks about it?

Live your life, live your faith, love your Father and let everything else fall where it lands. In the end, if we’re in Him then one day we’ll be in Heaven. And maybe if that remains our focus, all this chaos around us just won’t drag us down or throw us around like it used to.

If anything, I’d say it’s worth trying because this place definitely doesn’t seem to be getting its act together in regard to the faith and reason and reality and responsibility and humility and morality and modesty and honesty departments. So let the world go about their sinful dishevelment as that’s what many are going to decide.

We’re just here to both speak the truth that says there’s another way and to live our lives as living testimonies to that truth. So don’t muddy the message anymore by worrying about trying to make it make sense to a world so lost in sin and unwilling to leave it behind!

#LeaveNoSoulUntold