Day 3657 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 6:19 NIV

Rather at the merest consideration as to the cost paid to ransom these souls we’ve sold, no, we are tasked with the testimony of Christ’s triumph over our tragedy.

And it’s one best told, make that only told within our every single moment and movement as both motivated by a great and growing gratitude that should be in fact so deep within us that we abhor the idea that anything we do or say or think or assume might be elsewise built behind the tendency of blinded eyes and disbelief to dance only upon the surface. No, we cannot so discount this deliverance as it is something that all need yet none might ever afford no matter how special or successful or precious or important or significant or bold or beautiful or powerful or popular we may ever be able to think ourselves to be.

For this price He paid is now owed within the debt of a life, and simply put, one lost within the veil of vanity is not worth near enough to measure up to the mercy of the Messiah as His salvation is not a matter of the superficial but rather one that dove so deep as to delight in the grave. Turning such into a goal for the sake of what now awaits just beyond that dividing line drawn between here and forever.

Thus we cannot offer Him some shallowed existence shoddily assembled upon outward perspectives or personal appearances. No, indeed I just saw a rather remarkably simple way of conveying this idea shared somewhere a few days ago. “Your presence is more importance than your appearance.” And yet within this world so consumed with this scene shown of the shown and seen it seems as though anymore all of us are at risk of falling into the growing normality of such an abnormality as that of a life being lived for what only the eyes can see.

And this obvious limitation is of such a lack of depth and meaning and purpose in that only aims to please one of the senses. We’re so amazed by our sense of sight that anymore we seem to only assume that that which is seen is almost all that matters. And we can know this for certain because of this rather amazing importance placed upon such things as cosmetics and hair stylists and the sheer number of products available which are literally only there to help us achieve a look, and too the exorbitant expense to which so many go in order to afford this excess and achieve this express.

An expression of excess because it’s eternally unnecessary!

Which is a fact proven effortlessly within the ability to consider for even a second why it is that it is this way. Why do we do it? For if it’s not for God then who’s it for? Who are we trying to please? And it most certainly isn’t God as He made us exactly how He wanted us right from the start. And personally, I’ve not seen one hospital nursery that stocks lipstick or beard oil. And this isn’t to say that those things are inherently harmful, but I contend that anything done beyond a basic health reasoning does indeed bring with it that tendency to turn toward the detrimental.

Because it shifts our perspective as posed upon the purpose of our presence in this present. Which is something anymore so culturally common that we don’t even seem bothered by it. Everybody just falls in line without ever asking why. Because we’ve been inspired not to, because the world knows that should we ask we’d then find out real fast that it’s all for show. It’s a performance. It’s an undertaking literally only undertaken in the attempt to please people.

And if we’re ever trying to please people at all then we may need to reconsider whether or not we’re truly servants of God.

For the fact is that God and man desire different things. Been that way since Adam and Eve were inspired to look beyond the simplicity of our shared humanity. It’s never been enough to simply be us. And this mindset of such a misunderstanding has only become so mountainous because of the influx of such things as social influence as strewn upon every screen showing scenes of people who look so perfect that we just ache to emulate them. We want to paint chemicals ourselves upon until we replicate them. We want to work ourselves to a puddle of both sweat and tears trying to out-perfect them.

Yes, society as a whole has taken it upon itself to extrapolate these borderline extreme expectations for beauty and masculinity and femininity and it’s all become a monstrosity. Simply because it’s all done to feed the lust of the social industry as run by those who inflict this nonsense upon those of us who are so fragile in terms of our own self-awareness that we seek such easy acceptance as simply looking good to those who live as if looks are all that matter.

They aren’t.

They never were. In fact, imagine if you will that you could travel back in time. Know what you’d find even after taking such a short trip in terms of human existence to say just a century or so ago? Wouldn’t look like it does now! Go back even further and you’d see even less of the stress of what’s been made of mankind in vain. Yes, for hundreds of years people literally survived without even knowing what they looked like! Can you believe that?

Indeed, there was a time before mirrors and cameras and filters and photoshop and body sculpting and chemical injections aimed at either losing weight the easy way or just tightening up the skin to look a bit younger. It’s all vanity, and something that is sadly only growing in popularity because of all this modernity and technology and this falling society that is so sadly superficial that we act as if we’d fail to exist could we not check our look in the mirror.

Folks lived in the past with only ever perhaps happening upon a still body of water in which to catch their reflection. And now we cannot even begin to imagine the horror of not having that luxury of being able to ensure we look just right.

And again, why? Why are we so fascinated with looks? Is it something done in regard to honor? Is there honor waiting to be won within all the fakery of makeup and make believe? Do we honor ourselves by covering up the parts of us that we’ve learned to not like? And again, I’m not speaking of a health perspective. I’m talking only about all this outward adornment which Scripture itself teaches us is not where beauty was ever to be proven anyway. 1 Peter 3:3-4

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

In who’s sight? That’s right! And thus that is precisely the point and one perfectly missed any and every time that we concern ourselves with only the outward expressions of who we are. Are we not more than what we look like? "Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?” Can we say as such? Or rather do we appreciate clothes as much as we do for the ease they offer in either covering what we don’t want seen due to it seeming to us as unseemly to the rest or simply for the extravagance they exude?

Indeed, is this not why so many are so fascinated with luxury branding? Does a Coach hand-bag not carry the same junk as a fanny pack? But is not one considered the goal whereas the other is anymore simply a no-go? See what I’m saying? We have all these little idiotic idiosyncrasies in which we seek to assimilate our understanding of our purpose and presence into the presumptions and prescriptions of those present around us.

And yet, again, it’s thus all done only to please people.

And yet, again, I’m indeed guilty as charged in this regard. For as I’ve been discussing of late, my life in recent years has indeed waned toward the vain. So much of my importance in recent years has been placed upon the image I see looking back at me in every mirror and any window that I happen to walk by. And what’s sad is that it began in a truly innocent fashion as it was something I began undertaking in regard to my overall health and wellbeing.

For being obese is not a great way to extend our existence nor to do our best within whatever distance we’re here to cover. If anything, it’s quite the opposite. Because it’s taxing. It causes our bodies to work harder, this carrying of excess weight. It weighs us down, wears us out. And so I decided to make healthier choices so that I could better uphold this opportunity to live and serve and honor this time that I’ve been given.

But then it turned a corner into this place in which how I looked mattered more than how I felt. In fact, just recently my family had to sit me down and bring me back to my senses as I found that there is such a thing as exercise addiction. And I can see now that I was going so far toward the extreme that I was doing more harm than good. All in order to achieve a look.

How vain is that?

And yet, it’s so massively common too. For again, it’s something we all do. And no, maybe it’s not in regard to our weight. But that’s not the only thing that weighs us down or wears us out, is it? That’s not the only measure of an unhealthy way of life, is it? It’s not the only thing that we do to ourselves that is incredibly if not increasingly taxing upon us. Is it? No. No, whether it’s dieting or devoting hours to getting all the layers painted on just right so that you feel alright about yourself, it’s all this undue stress that we literally place only upon ourselves.

Granted, the world helps. But friends, that’s just it. We don’t need this world’s help. In fact, it’s this world’s help that’s helped us down this far into this pit of self-image problems and adhering to some pretty weird beauty standards and in fact almost hating ourselves because of the freckles we have or because our backs are slightly curved or our legs sort of bend inward or our hair isn’t voluminous enough or our skin isn’t as tan as we’d like or our muscles aren’t as big as that dude at the gym hitting the roids or our height isn’t quite tall enough or these many scars we bear from the battles we beat.

Yes, we can literally manage to hate ourselves for so many things that in no way tell even a fraction of the story of who we are.

And what’s worse is that I would venture to imagine that most have no idea what they are. Because we’re all so absorbed into the adornment of our exterior that we’ve lost sight and thus leave no time to looking deeper inside. And thus so many have no idea that they are walking around with an eternal treasure within them just waiting to be let out. Indeed, anymore we are more of the warden locking ourselves in captivity to pleasing society than we are temples of the Spirit sent to help save the same.

And that’s what needs to change. Because anything we do trying to please a human being, ourselves included, it’s only an effort entirely diluted in that it asks us to focus on the temporary as opposed to striving toward eternity. And I cannot seem to consider a more heartbreaking undertaking than living this life in just such a way that we reach the end of it only to there finally then see who we were meant to be and how it had next to nothing to do with the looks we’ve by then left behind.

For the body is but a vessel that is only in use for this time that does indeed come to an end. And thus so too must the body reach a finality in regard to its use.

Such is why we loathe the grave that He came to turn into the goal of life itself. Because that grave marks the last place that we will be seen in this earth. And having lived our lives as if only temples of the temporary, we cannot fathom the frailty to our folly being so fully proven forever. And thus we simply exist to make ourselves look better, look younger as if life isn’t being lived at all.

And maybe that’s because it isn’t.

Because friends, if we just live on the surface, then what can we know of our life’s substance?

I cannot for the life of me wrap my mind anymore around this commonality in which all of humanity sees this life as nothing but something lived on the outside. I see only limitation to all such striving for this shallow seeking of perfection. Because bodybuilders can only get so big and beauty models can only get so skinny. And we are warned expressly against all such extremity in life. Indeed, why destroy ourselves?

But is that not exactly what we’re doing by losing our ability to understand that what we are is what we have inside? Like we talked about yesterday in what was, for me at least, one of the most eye-opening simplicities that I’ve ever had the pleasure of considering. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, but God has never placed more importance on the temple than what is was meant to house inside.

Why then do we?

And sure, if you’re like me and have read through the Bible in its entirety, then you’ll know full-well that the Old Testament especially goes into an almost monotonous litany of the finest of details for the building of the Tent of Meeting and the Temple toward which that tent was aimed at becoming eventually. There are so many precise measurements and colorings given unto the Israelites in order to ensure that they built this building exactly as God desired it done.

But that just goes to show how important the Spirit truly is! For even the most holy place as constructed within that Temple, even but a few people ever set foot inside of it. The Ark of the Covenant, something literally overlaid with gold and thus of a value in this world beyond measure. And yet it couldn’t even be touched and too was rarely seen, and by nobody now for centuries.

Because what it held was what mattered most.

How much longer will we prove able to not understand this? That we are more than our bodies could ever give us credit for? It’s just dust, a bit of dirt, apparently mostly water. It’s breath and, as we age, something considered to be almost betraying in that our health starts to fade and our strength follows suit. Our bodies are meant to wear down over time, right up until the return to that from which they came. And that from which they came is the same as what Scripture says is passing away.

Why then worry so much about it? For it’s not our own to do with as we see fit, nor then definitely not ours to abuse as needed in order to fit within whatever the worlds wants to look at. We’re more than that! And the price He paid proves it!! Because that He died should show us that the purpose is far deeper than the surface. He sacrificed the surface!!! Why then do we exist on it? If He came to this earth to rid Himself of sinful flesh and all the fleeting cravings lusted for in light of it, because of it, then why do we place so much importance upon it?

Friends, we are temples of the Holy Spirit! And that is worth more than what can only be seen. And if you still don’t believe me, please do consider this last example.

Our thoughts as come from our minds. I’ve never seen my brain, and yet most days I’m fairly certain it’s there. Never seen my thoughts other than these as typed upon a screen which has only ever been able to capture those few that manage to hang around long enough for me to jot down. But does this not help us realize the depth of who we are and all we’re here to do? For the mind grows in knowledge and wisdom and understanding, all while our bodies themselves are fading.

Yes, we get wiser as we get weaker. Our hearts learn how to love better as we’ve less life to live. Our hopes begin to yearn for home as we finally start to grapple with the fact that we’re leaving this place. Surely then this can’t be home. Surely then this place cannot hold our hope. Surely then we have more love to give since it never seems that we run out of people to care about. Surely then wisdom is still waiting and thus worth more than the strength that is fading.

Friends, all of us have lived trying our best to honor the surface. And some of that is good if it helps us uphold this task of living well and serving well and ensuring we are here for as long as needed and in as best shape as possible to do what He has us here to do. But that is the line. Our bodies are ours to honor so that we can use them to honor Him. He must always remain the utmost priority, and simply put, that’s nearly impossible for us to pull off so long as we retain any focus upon the finite.

He didn’t create us to slip into such an existence wherein we worry almost only about what we look like or look at. Life’s just more than the eyes can see. And so He came and died to help us realize that there’s more to us than this sinful flesh.

So please stop living your life only skin-deep. We are temples, and yes temples should be kept in good working order and honored by ensuring them clean and orderly and functioning. But friends, what matters most is what the temple is designed to hold.

We are temples of the Holy Spirit, and He died to help us see it. So stop looking away from faith back toward the failing. We’re more than that friends, and it’s time we start living like it.

Because we’re running out of time to do so.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold