Day 3674 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 8:5 NIV

Thus our considerations proven choices that we make alone, but too with thankfully the possibility of then changing them. Even if more than a little help is needed to make that shift to life from death.

Which is exactly what we seem to see within that little semicolon separating these two similar yet distinct ideas. Indeed, as used here it seems to signify the separation between two utterly opposed destinations, death and life in this case. Which granted, is something we can’t seem to quite manage to live as if we do understand having only lived the kind of life we’ve known without any real measure of our own personal demise as of today. But such is the problem from which Christ came to save. For a desire for fire will leave only a felon aflame with a firm fervor found within every fallen folly as fancied by those many who’ve themselves affixed their eyes upon the scene of that already seen.

Because Judgement Day will validate that all that is now seeable is the same as will one day, sooner than we may think, prove to be perfectly perishable when it has all in fact perished from the present into what then proves but a plethora of pitfalls in the past. Yes, so much of life is lived looking to the lies our eyes buy trying to find something that means enough to make our lives mean more than they have. Simply because we’ve long lived setting our hearts on things below where, at this point, moths and thieves and other vermin are far from our biggest problems.

No, as humbly as I might attempt, I must admit that our biggest problem is, well, us.

Why? Well, because we’re the ones who choose the considerations we consider and thus too the choices we chase, and sadly then also the consequences they carry. Now that’s not to say we’ve not had more than a little help from a world pretending to be our friend, because we definitely have. But alas, there comes this point in life in which we’ve learned enough, seen enough, heard enough, failed enough to have found that pesky gift that responsibility is. Yes, there is in fact no such thing as a life lived without responsibility.

We just happen to live amongst a people who’ve clearly chosen to simply ignore it. And having all been so gullible to actually buy the lie that says the world is our friend, we’ve too spent more than a year or two doing the same thing. But the issue which now defines our decline is that as much as there’s no such thing as life lived without responsibility, nor then is there any way of life in which we can completely avoid consequence. No, we’ve all found or felt more than a few costs as charged because of our choices along the way to wherever and whatever we are today.

Might be fairly good at ignoring them too, but such is the gravity of reality in that we can’t ignore them forever. No, one day we’ll simply wake up to look in the mirror and see a stranger staring back at us. All because we’ve become of a mind that’s made so many concessions and chased so many comforts and embraced so much complacency that all we can see is just a monster that’s made our lives into absolutely nothing we ever wanted them to be.

Which is where faith either breaks us so as to begin the rebuilding process, or rather fear refuses to embrace such a shift of perspectives from here to Heaven.

Which is basically what that semicolon is seeking to accomplish.

For it separates the outlook of a life lived to please the flesh from that of one lived to please the Father. And as much as they are entirely different, as we discussed a little bit yesterday, so too then are the outcomes toward which they guide. Which are, granted, quite similar if not too entirely and eternally distinct from one another. For I suppose that the definitions of Heaven and hell could also be joined together with a semicolon as they both share some similar phraseology as well as such things as the promise of permanence.

Just again, utterly different in more ways than they are similar.

Because, as Paul goes on in verse 6, “the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Which starts to clear up the overall outlooks of both these opposed choices as is in fact a matter defined as the issue it is within verse 7 which says that “the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” Which leads into our verse discussed yesterday in that “those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

Which leads us finally to the realization that if we cannot please God having lived a life “hostile” to Him that turned out to have become so sinful that He chose to send Christ to pay our debts with His very own life sacrificed, then we’ve absolutely no reason to expect a warm welcome when upon that day that this life is done and we’re left to be handed our judgement in clear response to, as Christ himself put it in Matthew 16:27 wherein when the Son of Man comes “in his Father’s glory with his angels,” He will then “reward each person according to what they have done.”

And thus if we’ve lived a life lost inside and locked upon the leading side of this similar yet separated idea of minds set upon something somewhere, then so too will we have lived in utter rejection of His call to turn from such ways back to the place in which His better promise is to be proven. For make no mistake, both Heaven and hell are promised. Only difference between them is the Messiah and thus whether or not His message of mercy is allowed to make our lives as different as life is from death.

Indeed, there seems a great deal of such differences defined within God’s Word. Heaven and hell. East and west. Above/below. Life and death. It’s almost as if He’s trying every way He can to help us understand that who we’ve been as defined by what we’ve done isn’t at all anywhere close to what He created us to do and nor then who He desires us to be. Indeed, Ephesians 2:10. “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Created in Christ to do good as prepared by God for us to do before we even had the chance to choose not to. Which is heartbreakingly what we seem to have chosen so very much and so very often that we’re, at this point, so very broken that rather than setting our eyes to the skies in humbled anticipation of a greater reward to be later given we rather continue to comb the currents of the current seeking something with which to somehow justify such a negligent impatience that would, at least some days, seem to actually prefer here to Heaven.

For this is often where it seems most everyone sets their focus and stores their treasures.

Which is blatantly the very opposite of what we’re in Scripture called to do.

Indeed, we are all called to set our minds on things above for there our treasures are. But the troubling question, as considered inside that semicolon, is that which asks if such is truly the case. Yes, we’re called in many passages and places within the Word to live as if our hope, our purpose, our meaning, our very reason for being, all treasures as they are, to house them in Heaven. But are they? For oddly enough, such is the question that we each spend literally our every single day answering. And we’ve all in fact had a great deal of days thus far, and we may, at that, have many left still to come.

And yet so too, within the many days we’ve already lived, seems we’ve all had plenty of different answers to that question as to our focus, haven’t we? I mean, I personally cannot possibly remember every single thing that I ever imagined might matter. Most of them have by now become so forgotten because whatever my focus was at the moment didn’t end up mattering beyond it. And that’s the issue with our leaning so heavily upon our own understanding. It binds us to trusting in only anything from our abilities to our disbeliefs.

Which is also something that Scripture expressly warns us against in Proverbs 3:5. But we’ve done it anyway, haven’t we? And yet, despite having indeed gotten it backwards into what’s sadly become a life spent shifting our focus from moment to moment, does this mean that we should endure a similar shifting of perspective and priority within whatever days we’ve left to live? Or should we rather do as asked from He who is where we often claim we aim to be?

After all, since He is already in Heaven, would it not thus be best to heed the advice of not only the One who knows the way but indeed He who is the Way? Seems entirely too logical to look past anymore if you ask me.

And so indeed, though we may have lived such an utterly lost way of life as lived unto seeking our meaning within the many moments we also manage to so often take for granted alongside the many idols we eventually stop serving, the message of the cross is that we can change. Or at least be changed should humility be allowed to ever help us realize that our lives ain’t going right. Which is what such things as guilt and regret are meant to inspire. For they’re these miseries that always outlast the moment in which we made the mistake that was our choice to make.

All so that we might learn to stop doing the stupid things that bring about such lasting miseries as all those shameful memories that we still have of a past that we’re in no way proud of. Which leads back to the question at hand as considered in yesterday’s post. If we’re not even proud of all of what we’ve done, how then can we ever expect that God would be pleased enough to welcome us into a promise that cost Christ’s life for us to even have the hope of ever knowing?

No, it doesn’t work like that, for again, we’re the ones who make the choices as to the voices we listen to and thus too are we then the same as those who must bear the consequences. And to try and make all of this as simple as I can, is what we’re finding or focusing on in life worth the cost that it may charge in the end? Are the prizes we’ve prioritized worth the others that we’ve perhaps never even noticed? Are the rewards we’re either seeking or gleaning of such wonderful substance that they can undoubtedly outshine the things that we’ll either miss or never know?

I think about this all the time for He’s helping me to see that the difference between focusing on the flesh and on the Father is truly far bigger than any word or punctuation can define. It is as far as east is from west and too as life is from death. And having felt those many near-death experiences as I consider such things as regret and remorse to be, I too can finally begin to see that the way of life I’ve lived was in fact a bit too focused on the flesh.

And I’m just tired of reaping death.

And make no mistake, it’s still just as easy to see and feel the difference as it always was. For the acts of the flesh are still so clearly obvious: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” And so then is the warning against such things still the same too. That being that, “that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

But, to help even further, the fruits of the Spirit haven’t changed either. Indeed, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” And still too, “against such things there is no law.” And thus too, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Thus we find the difference between a life aimed into the fires and one set aflame for the Name that remains above all others.

And so yes, may we all live a life in which we each, as individuals, embrace this opportunity in which we set our minds on things above where as if we do agree that such is where our treasure is too. For what better way to not only live a decent life as done in light of our choice to honor God with the time and opportunity we’ve left but also to ensure that nothing less than what He’s proven best is allowed to become of even any passing importance? Because believe you me, judging from my own personal walk, it’s definitely proven more of a wander than anything else.

For I’ve found an ability to set my mind, and heart and eyes and ears and, well, basically everything on a great many things that are not only not above but are as of now so far behind where I am and below what I still hope to be that I know in increasing clarity that they never mattered in the first place. And what then leaves the regret so genuine is that I know that, in light of that, they never should have been allowed to matter period. No, if something didn’t matter enough to stay with me, why did I ever think it to matter along the way?

You see, that’s a part of this fear of God, or at least as I’m coming around to understand it. It’s that we have an amazing if not absolutely impressive ability to focus on things that have such little meaning or importance that we indeed should do yet another thing asked of us by He who is already where we should hope to be. And that is, as already mentioned above, to lean not on our own understanding. For was it not our understanding that at one time understood things now forgotten or left behind or in fact now even perhaps being fought against to be of enough importance or significance or value or whatever other measure of fealty we at one time offered them?

Indeed, I am alone the only one who’s made every mistake I’ve made. And I made them all, or at least the very vast majority of them, thinking that the mistake I now know I made was actually the right choice to make. And thus we, or maybe it’s just me, but we as humans are quite impressively stupid. And thus we’ve absolutely no business trusting in ourselves to ensure a proper placing of our every focus as necessary within every single day to ensure we fall not away from whatever we’re trying to be or wherever we’re trying to go.

And this is even more evident within the evidence considered in that we have no idea how to find Heaven on our own! And so, even in considering that alone, we should only look to things above where He is seated at the right hand of the God we’ve so often lived as if we couldn’t care less to know. For only He can get us where our only hope is said to be. And indeed, I want to live this life with as firm a grasp on this only hope I have of where I’m going as I possibly can. So it just makes sense to do all I do with Heaven in mind.

For who knows but that if we start focusing on other things along the way then we may end up in another place altogether? After all, just look at how many times we’ve seen that happen already! No, I’m finally learning that way of life in which while I am here I will hold onto everything here so very loosely that I’ll know not if or when it leaves or I leave it.

Rather I will hold onto the hope of Heaven, and thus He who is the only Way there, so very tightly that when I go from this place, I know without question to where I’ve gone. In fact, as this faith grows in me and thus I in Him, it seems that no other way makes any sense anymore. And there’s just something about that that seems to say that nothing else should matter anymore either.

Because I know what’s there to find and feel within a life lived focusing on all that the flesh desires. And I know then that there’s just not all that much too it as it’s never managed to last beyond the moment. So I want to learn to love what God loves. After all, the cross contends that He loves me.

It’d sure be nice to learn how to do the same for once, wouldn’t it?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold