Day 3689 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Titus 2:11 NIV

Teaching us to us “to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions.”

And that despite, or perhaps even in spite of, the overwhelming and yet somehow daily growing lack of “self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” Indeed, so much of who we are as defined most basically by what we do is done and thus won within the ways in which the world around us walks. And yet it’s becoming increasingly clear to see that the ways in which this world walks are what define all as being in an already dire, and that only deepening, need of the grace of God that offers salvation to all people.

Really then a most benefiting gift in that all of us are in fact a part of this “all people” spoken of here as being those to whom salvation is offered from only the overarching grace of God.

Indeed, while we might be entirely overwhelmed with wickedness and thus vastly found within what is a world now all but overwhelming itself with the pressures to keep choosing and chasing those pleasures, this fact only finds us as again a part of the “all people” in desperate need of God’s great and giving grace and the overarching graciousness that, by some magnificent miracle, continues to keep finding reason or reward in the giving of said grace unto we so like a place that doesn’t deserve such a kindness.

But I suppose that such is perhaps alone the reason and reward for if kindness or compassion were a matter ever measured as something that must at first be deserved, well then they simply wouldn’t exist at all for none of all people deserve them.

Thankfully He’s not yet to the point then of giving what we’ve sadly asked for either!

That’s actually something that I find myself taken aback by every time that I read through the Gospels, Matthew 27:25 specifically. It’s a verse found within the context of Christ being brought before Pilate to be questioned by those who’ve long insisted that He’s nothing more than some trouble-making rabble-rouser that’s up to so much good that it’s just too good to be true and thus He must not be all that good at all. (Mostly because He was doing so much good that He was making those who pretended to be good look pretty bad, and well, we can’t have that!)

And so the leaders of the people, the teachers of the Law, and among His favorites, the Pharisees, they finally managed to inspire the devil to do their bidding, or maybe the devil inspired them to do his, either way, not good, but they got ahold of ol’ Iscariot and, for the nominal fee of 30 pieces of silver, he turned His Savior over to be dealt with as “all people” saw fit to seem necessary. Or at least most people. For there were some then, as there are some now, who had faith in this Christ who was doing nothing but helping and healing and guiding and saving.

It’s only that most then, as most now too, hadn’t “eyes to see” nor “ears to hear.” Indeed, in Matthew 13:15 we read that Jesus knew that “this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”

Rather they, as we, saw what they wanted and asked too to hear only whatever they wished. And it’s this, this continued and still continuing insistence upon the persistence of our placation and pleasure, as if both some sort of sordid treasure, being met before our meeting of the mercy that we should all know we need as we’re sat here inside what seems the aftermath of a fallen past that’s proven of more mistake than meaning.

But I guess that’s simply because of that verse of Matthew 27:25 that I mentioned above. “All the people answered, His blood is on us and on our children!”

Yeah, definitely ought to be far more careful as to what it is that we ask for! Because the fact is that asking for what we don’t need whilst simultaneously ignoring His graciously giving us all we truly do, it’s a perfect blending of both betrayal and heartbreak. Ours the former leading then to His being the latter. For sadly, it does seem as if this foreboding has continued to keep us falling in line behind the rest of the blind. Indeed, we’re a people vastly failing to find meaning as we continue to live seeking it inside only such feeble places as our feelings and their fear of failing.

And, granted, this is a perfectly logical fear at this point for the sad reality is that we’ve all become so very accustomed to failing and falling short, of even the glory we seek for ourselves, that we’ve almost started inventing custom ways in which to seek the sin that seems to win whatever it is that we think we want or need most within any given moment. Mostly then just whatever, again, feels the best to this foolish fealty we’ve found within fighting only for our fragile feelings.

Indeed, we’re literally to the point of not merely making it up as we go, for we’ve been going that direction for decades, centuries, millennia in fact, but we’re even seeming to do a better job these days of ignoring the irony found so perfectly inside such a stupid way to lose a life.

And make no mistake, we’re all losing this life whether we like it or not, and so, that considered alongside this here read “grace of God” that “has appeared” that “offers salvation to all people”, well it kind of makes you wonder why it is that we find no meaning nor merit within what the Messiah (who is the grace of God that has appeared and now in fact secured salvation for all people) asked us to do in light of all that He did. Indeed, He tells us plain that whoever loves their life will lose it whilst whoever hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25

Yet this seems the meeting of an irony that’s borne, ironically, within all this odd responsibility that our way has managed to add to our lives. For we do seek to love our lives. We seek to make our lives feel so amazing by filling them with so much that makes us feel amazing that we begin to dread the loss of them period. For we’ve become a people so overwhelmed by the world and all its wickedness that we seem to see not anymore any of the wickedness but rather only the matters that we measure to mean more simply because they seem to always feel more better than the burden that is the promise that we’re all dying.

Yes, we hate that we have to leave this life we’ve come to love for the many pleasures and treasures we’ve turned to live for, live by, live in if we’re being honest. For indeed, such is what every form of idolatry is. It’s just our living vicariously through another be it a trinket, a totem, a title, a trophy, a trip we have planned for this summer. All of these things as loved and thus looked for within this world, friends, they keep us not only unable to look unto He who is the grace of God who has appeared to in fact seal the salvation of whomever dares do as He did and embrace humility, but they also keep us so very responsible that it’s blown well past reasonable.

Yes, sadly rather than humility we’ve oddly enough sought instead pride, but also then responsibility. For the truth will tell that you simply cannot have the former without the latter coming in greater waves and ways as part and parcel. For the more we seek to have, hold, hope we can be, well, so then too the more we have to look for, aim for, strive toward. Thus showing that pride only produces more responsibility.

And yet instead of hating what makes our lives harder, no, rather we seem to only hate humility more, so much that we insisted upon the death of He who is humility, all while loving the pride that makes responsibility all but mandatory. For oddly enough, equal and opposite kind of thing here, as much as pride increases responsibility, isn’t it just as easy then to see that humility alleviates it some?

Maybe not entirely as there’s simply no such thing as a life free of responsibility. But hey, take what you can get right?

For indeed, were we to ever see humility as our main responsibility, perhaps in that we'd find that we really have few others at all. For example, we’re told in Scripture that to fear God and love people are the two utmost actions capable of upholding the law and thus the overall expectation of God for “all people” as required in light of all He’s done to “offer salvation” unto the same “all people”. Us again being a clear part of “all.”

And yet are not both loving God and loving others done only in and by a humble heart and lowly mind? Meaning thus that if those two are both satisfied and thus upheld by humility, of what other responsibility do we have in all honesty? Because if the greatest of the commandments, considered such because they, as mentioned in Galatians 5:14 in which we’re told that “the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” if the majority of our responsibility is satisfied within our loving God and thus too loving people, then what else have we to worry about?

Indeed, it’s fair then to imagine that all things will be covered in and by humility. Such as honesty as a humble mind finds no need to lie as there is simply nothing to hide when living the truth. Or what of compassion, kindness, caring, are not all done by servant’s heart seeking to serve others only? And thus in this do we not too see that pride is alone what tends to add most responsibility to our lives? Does it not make us more responsible to our hopes and dreams, a weight so placed as defined in how it's on us to prove them as worth chasing as we have?

Does not pride task us with the defending of our every presumption and opinion as designed inside the fear of our being proven wrong again? Does it not add the weight of worry as won within dreading not getting our way, and thus our fighting every day to ensure we do? Do we not seek to live behind lies because of the truth telling the story of our seeking our own glory and managing to find none at all?

Indeed, this seems quite the irony in life in all honesty!

For again, we’ve come to hate responsibility, and yet so much of our every responsibility is only there out of what is only a selfish necessity. Like dishonesty. We lie to others to avoid the possible offense of the truth. And yet we’re then tasked with remembering the lie, and the one we told to try and solidify it, and the one we told after that trying again to make this growing story feel a bit firmer. Indeed, dishonesty demands that we keep track of the deceit so that it’s never seen through to the truth that we could have just told to begin with but chose not to out of fear.

Indeed, fear! That’s quite the added responsibility, and actually one that we’re commanded against explicitly. For Scripture tells us time and again to not fear, to not worry, to in fact bring our every such doubt and lay them all out at the foot of the One who cares for us and that in this He will fight for us and that we need only to be still. But for our to be able to be still would demand we be humble enough to admit that we cannot fight the fights we’re facing.

But friends, that’s just it, of all the fights we’re facing and finding only fear in front of, how many of them are but burdens we’ve bought on our own behalf? See, just take the whole responsibility example again. We hate responsibility, but we make our lives so complicated that we have to have it.

It’s like all that comes with driving a car. You have to get your license which involves a testing which means some time spent both studying and practicing. And then you have to have a car which means having to have money with which to buy said car, which is earned within a job that brings its own passel of responsibilities. Then there’s insurance. And gas. And new tires when the old ones wear out. And the fear of accidents. And the responsibility to either fix things or afford the repairs.

It all becomes such a beast of burden of this added responsibility that we could perhaps avoid entirely if we’d change our circumstances say to the humility of walking or riding a bike. But that would maybe mean a smaller life in a smaller place. And thus living in a city makes having a car a necessity. And thus we see that our way of life is what adds all of this responsibility to our life. Our way is what makes this so hard!

Because the simple fact is that God never asked for us to worry about, focus on, fight for any of this to be what it’s become. Rather He calls us instead to humble ourselves. To trust in Him. To even fast sometimes, and that even once a week as done in a day of Sabbath rest as taken from all our normal workings. And yet we see this as a frustrating responsibility. Yes, we see rest as burden! Tell me then, convince me please as to how our way is so amazing and His so incredibly unreasonable!

Or does it not only seem so because we’re used to our way despite its need of salvation from all the struggles and starvations we’re continuing to find? Does it only seem so because He asks that we humble ourselves unto the very carrying of crosses upon which insist every such needless burden to be lifted as He showed us was needed? Does it only seem so because it’s a gift given, giving us then nothing in which to boast or brag and thus our pride nothing upon which to glutton itself?

Indeed, He came to set us free, and that from even many a responsibility! And yet, instead, we’ve too hardened our hearts and closed our ears and shut our eyes and chosen to remain living our own lives our own way completely oblivious and thus filled with all sorts of doubt and denial as to the mere possibility of any other. But friends, there is another! And it’s so different that He even tells us Himself that His way is easy for the yoke is far lighter than this one we keep insisting we carry.

What have we within this life that we cannot let ourselves let down? Or is it only that all we don’t want to let down is ourselves?

Friends, fact is that the grace of God has appeared and He has offered unto all people a salvation that is so simple that it literally asks only that we lay our burdens down. Yes, we’re asked to come to Him and lay our every flaw and failure at His feet as we, once there, can finally see that God sent Jesus to see us through Him. He came to make us whole again. And thus Micah 6:8 proven true in that, in Jesus, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

What is hard about any of that?

No, it’s rather that such is so easy that we simply don’t understand how it could have always been that simple. And that is why we’re the ones in need of His grace and the salvation it gives. Because we’ve made a right monstrosity out of life, and too, then a great many mistakes within it. But friends, He came to both forgive our mistakes and to lead us in the Way that made none of them Himself. Yes, Jesus came to set us free and showed us how to stay there.

And it has nothing to do with pride, with greed, with gluttony or lust or laziness or fear or failure or taking this opportunity then for granted. No, He had every reason to make it impossible for us to ever be forgiven. And yet He chose instead to freely forgive.

Why then do we live as if we hate both freedom and forgiveness? Is it because we really don’t like, want or need either? Or is it just because we love, enjoy and truly need both but are entirely unable to find them by ourselves?

Truth is we were never meant to. Maybe it’s time then to stop trying and simply admit that His grace not only found them, but that, in Christ, He is them.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold