Day 3497 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 30:10 NIV

When confronted with confrontation from among a cancerously cantankerous culture one has but two considerations: Cower until you concede or chase courage until things change.

Even if things never change.

Here.

Because that’s the overall trajectory of life both promised in the Word and debated, denied, declined and decried amongst the world. It’s proven, unequivocally and ultimately undeniably that all manner of life as lived within this land is eventually aimed outward in that we’re spending time that’s running out, we’re all called to come both out of ourselves and out of these surroundings, and eventually that we are all going to be venturing out of this world and of this life and thus of this life as lived like this world to be liked by this world so as to share in their fear of that finality perhaps not being quite so final after all.

That’s what underscores all this agitation that otherwise undermines all good efforts given unto good works aimed at achieving a better hope in a brighter day for literally everyone. That is the ultimate passion of all those who follow Christ’s purpose for their lives. It’s the salvation of everyone, literally and legitimately everyone. For His Word calls us to love our enemies, to live such good lives among them that they might find in our difference a passing interest in why we’re so weird, to just live our lives as the living testimonies they were created to be, testifying to God’s all surpassing glory.

Problem is that we’re passing through a place that only surpasses in such things as doubt, denial, betrayal, disbelief and a whole host of fiery contention aimed at stoking the ego that makes such self-lampooning seem a little less laughable. Like a lot less, all the less, completely un-laughable period so that nobody ever has to sit with the really heavy realization that we’ve all done is really nothing but revolt and rebel against the Creator of life who came in the Christ to save us from this darkening night by lifting us into His magnificent light in which we needn’t hide anything anymore.

Alas, there is nothing new under this sun which currently shines here at 11:07am in what is another day highly suspected to be but a replica of all the ones we’ve gone through before, meaning that we’re still face-to-face with the exact same brand and breed of societal denial that arose with the dawn of those living thousands of years ago and has never been allowed to set inside souls still scratching for something in which to hope without having to admit that hope isn’t ours to find.

It’s just that we’re a people of perfect pride and that arrogance that has become us has convinced us that it’s on us to find what we want for us all while refusing the infinitely more that we really don’t want anywhere around us in fear that it might rub off somehow.

Like humility, simply because such is such an audacity when seen from inside arrogance having blinded eyes to the belief in anything other than ourselves and whatever those around us want for themselves which has come to define all we hope to find for ourselves. It’s a really heartbreaking rat race in that we’re all running around like chickens without heads and yet still entirely certain that we can see what we’re doing and where we’re going despite the lack of eyes thanks to our having become just like a world that’s so utterly spiritually blind.

And this race hasn’t ceased a single second on the large scale across society since it was begun upon that tree from which the worst kind of fruit was taken, leaving then the Good Lord to author a Way by which the fruit might be placed back on the tree, just this time with nails and such in order to hopefully make the message clear enough to finally stick.

The messing being that we’re sick.

The problem then being that we disagree.

The solution always being that our opinions never really mattered all that much. Or at all, however you want to look at it, pretty much entirely determined by where you are in regard to the truth of faith and too just how far along that path you might happen to be depending upon the amount of humility allowed for within hearts hopefully regenerate.

Why hopefully? Well, because it’s literally the only hope we have. Which is again another issue in that for a long time our hope has been scattered amongst mankind looking for help with both everything we don’t yet know that we apparently need and too the social validation of our sharing in their sinful congregation’s consternation as found within this consideration that somehow this world knows better what we need than He who simply made us to be His.

It’s really impressive just how confusing everything gets when you allow in every possible voice that has anything to say that they insist you hear if you’re to continue feeling welcome here.

And yet that’s one of those freedoms that we’ve been talking about for a bit in that, well, we don’t need to. Feel welcome. Feel wanted. Feel all warm and cozy within this culture that is still refusing to count the cost of all it’s lost simply because the masses have fallen so far away from that fallen reality that they haven’t anymore the ability to confess the very real presence of pretty heavy consequence within basically every choice we’ve ever made and yes, even those we’ve not made yet.

Just seems that that amount of responsibility is really all that’s considered laughable anymore. Guess that’s pretty much bound to happen when sin is taken so lightly that we chuckle every single time we choose something that tickles our itching ears and wayward hearts and utterly debased minds leading our souls to have become so far lost that it’s truly an unmeasurable miracle that He could find us.

And yet He did. And because He did, well, that’s why we can’t do as told by those around us who’ve so clearly gone cold, because to shut up and go away and speak only when spoken to and even then speak only what we’re told to, it just doesn’t work that way anymore.

We’ve kind of retired from caring about what people want us to do, want us to say, want us to be, just doesn’t seem to be a worry anymore. Because it never should have been. Because as it turns out, worrying about what people want only gets you nowhere.

At all.

For such is the substance of the fall. And thus, as those who had fallen, fall still far more than we ought and yet finally have this alien ability to feel bad about it so as to inspire us to stop allowing for it to happen so frequently, that’s all just kind of changed our frequency in that we’re losing our ability to hear what the world says in what feels like a version of selective hearing that’s left us deaf to doing as those around us might be pleased or appeased for us to do.

Because in light of everything that’s now on the table out here in the wide open and finally free, what does it matter what the world thinks, what the world wants, what the world promises to do if we fail to do what they think we should in order to satisfy or satiate their sickened assumptions of what life is supposed to be, supposed to mean? What does it matter what any of us think in regard to our opinion of what life is? For the basic truth is that we didn’t create life and so it’s not really on us to determine what our purpose is within it nor what matters most amongst those living like it’s not a gift at all.

That right there should tell us everything we need to know about what this world wants. For the fact that any, let alone as many as there are who do, could take life so for granted to reach this point in which it’s entirely nothing but the substance of things wanted, of dreams planted, of desires demanded, that any could reach that point only proves that this world knows nothing of what life is nor then what matters most within it, and nor then have they any right to dictate or demand we do anything so as to assuage their assumptions as done only to oblige their opinions which are standing in eternal opposition against the very God who made them.

It’s not our fault that we’ve all forgotten that, and nor is it our fault that those of us who’ve been helped to remember now have no ability to remain silent about this Savior who we know saved us from what we’ve known trying to be known by a world that knows nothing.

And just to clear up any chance at confusion, it’s not really all that big of a problem to be offended by that truth either.

I fact, I’d venture a healthy wager that we’d all do quite well to be offended far more often by the truth that confronts so that it can comfort. Just bound to take us a while to see it that way. Why? Too much world in us. Too much worry in us. Too many voices in our ears, ideas in our minds, lies in our hearts that have been planted there by these weeds amongst whom we’ve grown within this world so lost in its way that nobody has any hope other than all these things in which we’ve come to believe hope is simply waiting for us to save up enough money or applause to afford.

That’s all life is down here anymore. It’s just about what we can afford as wanted and won by a world we’ve looked to lead the way and thus tell us how to be who to be as if we’re to please those we’ve given this power to lord over us without their giving us anything at all in return other than rejection, refusal, reprimand and recusal any and every time we fail to do as we’re told by those who’ve lost their voices.

How dare we allow this world to instruct us as to what we’re supposed to do with our lives, especially these renewed and now living in Christ? For this place knows not where we’re going as they despise the very suggestion that there’s a better place out there than this so filled with pride and prize. And as the masses continue to run away from the light who is the Life who is the Christ, why then would we allow in any of their input in regard to what we should or shouldn’t be doing?

“See no more visions!” “Give us no more visions of what is right!” “Tell us pleasant things.” “Prophecy illusions.” “Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”

Just repeat such things as ‘love is love’, ‘live your best life’, ‘look out for number 1’, ‘you only live once’, ‘faith is foolish’, ‘do as you please’, ‘follow your heart’.

Yeah, those’ll get you where you should want to be. Right amidst so much of this world that this world is all you can see and eventually all you’ll ever be.

This place is filled with those who have run so far from right that all they’ve left is the hope that their denial of God isn’t as fatal as we all know it to be. And to help in that regard, these folks will insist we lie, that we hide, that we sit down and shut up and “stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!” Because every reminder that He is real and thus really there and rightfully really upset about all this endless revelry and rebellion, well, that just does a number to our pride.

And considering that here pride is life, well, to lose our arrogance would be to sign our death certificate.

Just amazing how many can’t see the life in that now that Christ has overcome the grave on our part.

But what we need to understand as servants of this Savior who did accomplish just such a task on our behalf is that we now live on His behalf. He gave us His life by taking our death so that we could give Him our death and live His life. We are His, and thus we are here only because He still has a job for us to do. And it was for our benefit that He told us all about the trouble we’d have, the hardships we’d face, the pain we might feel, even hung in our place to show us what this world might do to us if we followed His path.

And yet despite all of that help that He so kindly gave so as to help us along His way, we’ve lived so long within this world that anymore we live as if our lives are defined by what those around us think of what we're doing with them. And that is one of the biggest lies that has ever been told. And it’s one furthered in such things as social media and political correctness. We live as if we have to look like, sound like, live like everyone else because that’s the story we’ve been told far more than the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Life isn’t a matter of what others think and thus nor is our life measured by what others think. It just isn't. As Christians our lives are defined by the presence of Christ and measured by whether or not we’re growing in Him. And while this world doesn’t care to even try to understand that, the fact is that we don't turn it off just because the world doesn't like seeing it.

We are the light of the world and it’s time we ditch the baskets under which we’ve been told to live in hiding. No, this world needs to know the Name that is above all others as without it, well, none of us will ever know life at all because He is the Life. And since He is too the Truth, well then we know exactly what to do, and it ain’t worrying about whatever this world may want from us.

No, no one can serve two masters, and nobody serving as a solider gets themselves entangled in civilian affairs. We’re called to fight this very good fight of this very real faith in our very real Savior who came to lead us back to our very real Father. Thus soldiers we are, and thus we cannot concern ourselves with the affairs or assumptions or presumptions or opinions of those who seek to remain so civilized within this civilization caught a million lies from home.

Let this world say and do and threaten whatever they may need to keep hold their fear. We cannot meet that fear halfway as we fear God alone, and thus mankind just doesn’t have any say in our lives anymore. Don’t give it back to them. Not ever.

No matter how impressively they may insist because there’s just one simple fact that I want everyone to understand:

Life as lived amongst the lost in this world will try to take as much from us as they can get because they’ve all so little left of themselves. But perhaps living in a world that tries to take away so much from us in the way of peace or purpose, maybe this world trying to take away from us whatever they can get only helps us to learn what all we’re unwilling to give away.

My friends, do not surrender your hope just because so many here have none of their own. It’s just not worth losing what we’ve been given the chance to do, to be simply because the world refuses to try for that same amazing grace themselves.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold