Day 3527 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Samuel 12:22 NIV

If the Maker of life was pleased to make us His, why then do we live as if we’re not?

Sure, there’s a rather appropriate fear to be found within faith as faith, in and of itself, is a matter of trust and hope and certainty as considered inside the unseen and as such it asks us to believe beyond us.

And well, for all of us this is a fairly perfect novelty in that we’ve never known of even a day within which we didn’t rely primarily upon ourselves. For life here has devolved into this sort of chaotic dissidence in which each of us live so different as necessitated by our varied interests and intents as always determined by the delights in which we delight and the doubts of which we dread. And this continued separation of society into cells of selves that sell themselves to themselves has left us leaning mostly upon ourselves as we see that such is supposed to be as normal as most here have agreed to allow it to become.

But that’s a rather confused existence when one stops to think about it as it demands a continued degree of devotion that’s otherwise devoid of the abilities or achievements or understandings or imaginations of anyone else. And while that might do wonders in regard to our arrogance, what it does as well is that it retards our reverence as it places it almost exclusively on us.

Which is the last place it should have ever been allowed to recline.

At least according to the Gospel of Christ.

For you see, this story of what is our salvation has been forever what’s now the longest-running made-for-real-life programming ever put into place. And yet the very foundational undertones of this tragedy-turned-turnstile is that we didn’t design it. It wasn’t a matter made for man by man, such as all these replacement theories and theological failures that we’ve come to place our faith in instead. It’s in fact the only religion-based outlook that is so unconcerned with our ability or input that the very Author of it wrote into it what is the cornerstone that seems sadly still rejected by we who continued building what cannot possibly benefit.

Indeed, this story was written all but in full upon that first day when God sat to designing life and the places and spaces in which it would be lived for a time called a lifetime as it was at first intended to be as unending as He who created us to be so His that it’s in His very image that we exist. And while at first He did all this work that He proclaimed good, alas what was began to remain good has become instead what we’ve come to intend inside what is nothing but a contending against He who created us to remain what we’ve all but never been.

Because while we were all created in His image, unfortunately the fall from such grace aimed instead into the grave for which our sins inspire us to crave, it begins a converse consideration right from that very beginning of us.

Yes, sin has become such a prevalence that each of us all but prefer it to life in that sin is a matter which manifests in what most here consider life. It’s the best life, as deemed by some. In fact, it’s a very highly prioritized plan paved along a path so wide and welcoming and warm that none of us know quite why we’d ever want anything other. Why not do as we’re told we’re able to inside this idea that’s so normalized anymore that none of us even need to talk it out. It’s just inherent.

Sin is inherent leaving us to thus inherit the very same problem as proven throughout the history of humanity and that is the death that all vanity demands as it sets itself up against the image in which we were made as we set our days to making instead all that we want instead.

And so life is lived in what seems a temporary usurpation of the only true throne in eternal existence.

It’s just that we can see these that we’ve come to sit upon and so we assume them safe assumptions of true achievements as, to us, seeing is sadly still believing. But that’s only because it seems the shortest distance between two points, one being where we are at present and the other being what we want for ourselves as soon as possible. And this almost radicalized impatience has inspired in us this denial of anything, anyone, every message and every messenger that dares remind that there was always meant to be more to a lifetime than what we’ve settled for filling our ears and years with whilst within this world.

For in fact this world hasn’t been our final destination for quite some time, longer than any of us alive today have been alive.

Because long ago there came a Man named Jesus who saw fit to free us from this enslavement to self and sin that we still deny we continue to live within. For that was always God’s design. And if you don’t believe me, just read the Bible in its entirety. Because if you would, you would realize that there are sprinkles of salvation strewn throughout every single one of the 66 books that were compiled into what is the Bible. And as salvation from sin has long been God’s intention, we can also see inside every book of that Bible some sort of mention of the Messiah who was and is and it most definitely coming again.

Indeed, there’s hints of Jesus within every book, New Testament most blatantly, but to the discerning eye and devoted heart, He’s all over the place in the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Proverbs. He is the literal tie that binds all of life and faith and death and burial and resurrection together into what is now our own personal redemption of what we’ve all long lost and learned only to leave unmissed. And so He saw fit to not leave us so blind by disbelief.

Even to the extent of hanging on a tree as if the sinful fruit placed back where it should have never been taken from.

For that initial decision to so deny His design as proven within everything from His creation to the laws in which He created it to work as He designed it, such became what seems to have begun a stone rolling down hill in that there seems still today no moss left to be found upon all that we miss as we mess up and continue to only convince ourselves otherwise. That wasn’t His design either. He didn’t create us to be our own sources of estimation or expectation.

He created us to be reliant upon Him alone, for such is about as simple and thus sensible as one might ever imagine something so complex as life has become was supposed to never be. No, He didn’t make you or me to be the ones we look to, lean on, learn from. And if we need proof of this, just ask yourself, when was the last time you spoke life into existence?

We haven’t. We’ve spoken death into existence. We’ve spoken doubt into existence. We’ve each spoken lies that leave us lost or lead others the same. We have spoken denial inside every refusal to confess our transgression as proven unequivocally in such feelings as guilt or regret. We’ve spoken rejection each time we’ve told ourselves of the fears we’ve forced to be found within the demands to do whatever we simply don’t want to. Yes, we’ve perfected this ability to imagine the worst so as to help us avoid having to do what we know to be best.

And yet, again, and thankfully so, God never needed our input or imagination in regard to the creation of life which means that nor does He seem content to agree to listen to our lunacy now that we’ve saw fit to so perfect it against Him in what are these lives lived speaking only death to life. For such is the only substance accomplished when a soul sets its sights upon the superficial and assumed. Because contrary to common consensus, there’s no safety held inside our assumptions.

Which, as seen here, is quite a remarkable gift all its own.

For it’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God, you know, considering our penchant for living against Him and all that. And such is why faith is found to be foolish by those who are perishing. It demands we admit that we’ve brought about our own impermanence and too that we do the same each and every time we decide to again descend into doing again what He always asked us to not do at all. Alas, to repeat the past is the only promise promised unto those who learn not the life it was so meant to instill from, yes, even the many mistakes that were made.

Indeed, again, that was always God’s intended plan as He’d have not spoken life into being if He didn’t want life to be a matter of living. He created us in His image, filled then with our measure of all that He remains, timeless, righteous, holy, humble, glorified and oh so very gracious. And such is why now we fear what we know we’re bound to find when upon that day we are once more before the source of all we’ve since lost. For we’re the fearful servants who bury His benevolence behind other priorities, namely our dread of letting Him down.

Again.

See, the fact that sin has left its stain upon our hearts, deep in our brains, such has become for us evidence of the death we deserve. How could it not? I mean, let’s break it down to its most elementary simplicity. God is life and He created us to exist in His image and too in His presence. This means that He created us to live a life that honors Him for His having given us this chance to be His. And to help us accomplish this holy reverence, He created limits that we needn’t pass as they would open unto us knowing more than we needed to understand about the overall simplicity of life.

For none can be guilty of sin had they never known what was defined as sinful.

But alas, even as Jesus said, because we claim to see, our guilt remains. And we must claim we can see because we claim we’ve seen the reason for every single wrong turn we’ve chosen. And we must confess we have chosen those mistakes as we ourselves still carry the weight of the shame or guilt or regret that we found inside the aftermath of those wrong turns taken. And so, having each of us felt the sting of such things as shame and sorrow and sadness and fear as felt inside our failure to uphold this call to be the holiness as proven in the image in which we were made, well, we know we’ve only made a mockery of our Maker.

And as our Maker is life, this means all we’ve made within all we’ve made as now known as a mistake is nothing but death as all we’ve made that’s led us only away from who He is and thus who He created us to remain. Yes, we’ve traded His life for the death of sin. And so it’s no wonder as to why we wander into such violent worry that we refuse to imagine anything so hopeful as the Gospel of Jesus was always intended to be.

Indeed, this world is a place rampant with doubt as demanded of guilt trying to preserve itself via the only way that such is, to us, even remotely feasible. And that’s to doubt. Because, in our understanding, as fallen as it’s become, it makes more sense to deny our wrongs than to hope in the forgiveness that’s literally been proven. Safe to say that we shouldn’t be the ones we rely on when it comes to making things make sense!

Which is, again, not at all what He designed us or called us or created us to do. It’s just that, like Eve, we’ve heard other ideas that have spoken death into our lives via the same doubt that’s inspired us to design our denial of His kindness in exchange for our shallow assumption that maybe we won’t need it.

Friends, we’ll only need His kindness more every single day!

So why wait? Because it’s scary? Sure is. Because it’s embarrassing? You betcha. Because it makes us look bad? Doesn’t our guilt agree that we are already? See, that’s the silliness hidden not at all all that well within our wayward fears. It’s that we already know that we’ve done wrong, and so what do we have to lose? Our lives? Guess what? We ain’t keeping them anyway! Nope, as is an entirely simple fact, life doesn’t exist without death for the two are now tied together because of the sin in which all of us have lived.

Life is life, sin is death as it goes against the Creator of life, and so having lived this life in sin means we’ve filled life with death thus leaving the two now only divisible by mercy, which was, until Jesus, invisible.

Yes, He is the Gift, and friends, the gift is that we don’t have to stay where we’ve been. For such is the purpose of forgiveness and too the faith which makes forgiveness so undeniably the point that He nailed it to the cross to show us, physically, visibly, that our sins are forgiven.

Again then, what are we waiting for? To not feel ashamed? To stop making mistakes? To somehow atone for the ones we know we’ve made as proven inside the shame we know we feel? Get real! We cannot do what needs done because we already would have if we could have! We cannot earn our own salvation just as much as we cannot even begin to deny that we need it. And He knows that. That’s why Jesus. The cross. The grave. The stone rolled away. It was always His plan to bring us back to Him again.

It’s on us as to whether we allow fear to pretend that His will in this regard may not be done. We will all return to Him, we either do it as enemy or friend. How do we want Him to again prove Himself when upon that day that our souls are weighed and found to be without life should we have lived without faith?

Friends, He will not reject us forever unless we reject Him for as long we have to do so in this life. Don’t do that. For Scripture proves time and again that His plans for us are for our good, for our health, for our peace, for our life. That’s why Jesus died, it was all so that we wouldn’t be left paying that debt when it’s eventually proven that we owe it. He’s given us this day called today within which to turn back to Him and admit we’ve done nothing to be welcomed in His presence.

But folks, that’s just it. He’s proven His goodness to ONLY those who don’t deserve it. Because there is no other kind here! For mercy is never deserved. Nor is it ever earned. It is always given freely by the one who could have chosen to refuse but instead chose not to. He has chosen to do all things to prove who He is for all to see. Which side do we want to find? Loving Savior or just a jealous God that we treated as a stranger?

He didn’t do that to us but instead sent Jesus to lay down His life for us. What are we holding onto that remains in between us? Fear? Doubt? Denial? Let it go! Let it go before it kills you, because friends, there has never been life in fear or doubt or denial. There’s only life in Christ.

Why continue to refuse what He’s freely given inside a gift that’s now proven to be all we could ever need?

If He wanted to destroy us, He could have by now. But instead He gave us another day and thus another chance. How are we going to spend it in light of the mercy it demanded for us to have it?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold