Day 3754 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

John 10:10 NIV

Seeing/Believing

And anymore, as always before, it seems, unfortunately, that we then get caught seeing a scene as seen in the sight of the assumption of what we thought we saw as seen inside of that we’d sought to see. And while this may prove fairly harmless in regard to most things, for now at least, it can become quite the issue when allowed audience inside of certain situations, scenarios, circumstances or conclusions. And that determined upon the choices and their always corresponding actions as chosen and then taken within any, and in fact all, of all the above.

Something perhaps proven best within the discrepancy still clearly seen between Golgotha and Calvary.

Indeed, it seems that all of us, without exception mind you, that all of us have considered the Gospel from only the vantage of we the disadvantaged as displayed within the disadvantage as seen upon that place called Golgotha as opposed to accepting our invitation, as still standing so long as we’re here still breathing, to the very seeing of such a sight and scene as Calvary.

Yes, skulls instead of victory.

Not sure why, though I think we know, but it does seem that our every doubt in terms of faith is found in that we see in the cross, the crucifixion only the loss, the suffering, the sacrifice, the cost, and well, we know we can't pay it as none here can afford it as to lose a life is what we know as to die, and since we've not seen what awaits us when we've died, have thus no idea as to the other side of that line dividing this life from whatever and wherever and for whatever we've never lived, loved, looked to love that way of life, we see then only that we die.

And well, death to the full, as is the promise for all, it seems to keep us seeing only the cost, the loss. Yes, we see in the Gospel that we gotta die, but then fail to realize that, because of the Gospel, we get to live. We see the cost of admission being our admitting that we’ve not done this well, and are now so spiritually unwell that we need the most extreme of all new starts.

That being death as was decided upon and done indeed in order to precede His “new thing” in us beginning there and then only.

The new thing here being a life lived forever as found in our living in righteousness, or at least our finally being of the ability to admit that we haven’t and thus haven’t anything by which to afford our entry into the presence of He who has all along asked only that we be righteous and holy as He is, well, righteous and holy. Yes, our Father, called such as in His image we were made, He asked us then, asks still now, that we be holy as He is holy, and that we seek in our lives to perfect said holiness out of reverence for Him.

Alas, we seem only to revere the finality that we see inside of death as displayed in all its brutality within the scene of Calvary, again, often seen still as only Golgotha.

Yes, we see, from a sinner’s perspective, only the reality of the cost of our actions, as called consequences, and, try as we have and will likely try some more, we know that there is a price to be paid. And yet still we seem to see only what we feel able to believe, as is only what we see. And, at least from this side of eternity’s dividing line, we see the grave. And we know that graves get filled. We know that bodies in them decay. We know that those who go into them, well, they don’t typically come back out.

At least outside of hollyweird and its detestable fascination with zombies and other nonsensical idiocies.

Not sorry at all!

No, I’m in fact only sorry that I didn’t see the other half of the story years sooner than I did, and that because I wish I could have been sharing my faith’s growing long before I started, either growing it or sharing how such is done only because He helps us to do so. Oh yes, how I wish I could have been doing this for twice as long as I have, but wishing and working never really work well together, and so, well, I’ll just keep working at what I can and let go of what I can’t.

And what I can do is tell everyone I can about this story of God’s glory which became flesh and walked amongst us in order to teach us, lead us, guide us unto what is the exchanging of some place of skulls for a place of eternal victory. Golgotha for Calvary. Who we were, what we earned for what we never could. Salvation unto sinners and thus freedom for the captives and food for the hungry and hope for the dying and that all of us are all the above, the last most dire of all.

Yes, we are all dying, and well, we see it every day. In fact, for lack of a more nuanced or solemn way to say it, we’re dropping like flies. Every single day somebody dies, and no, they don’t come back once they do. Where do they go? Will we go there too?

Well, we can hope so, so long as those who’ve left left their lives in the hands of He who holds the keys to death and locked that door so that none will enter in of all those who are His. Unfortunately, as we can see in what seems an increasing clarity, there ain’t that many who are living to do so. Rather, and a truly sad reality it most certainly is, rather we see most still living as if faith is foolishness.

Simply because it has the audacity to ask that we believe in the as of yet unforeseen possibility of finding life in death.

What a horrible request!

Indeed, how dare God ask us to believe in something so hopeful as the idea that we might live even though we’ll die! Can’t we just die in peace? And thus pretend that we might live inside the same, despite how afraid we are to die and this very truth being proven daily in our doing everything we can to live as it we’re not? Yes, we just want to live this life as if we’re just going to die, as, somehow, that seems to be considered far more inspiring and encouraging and hopeful and thus able to make us happy.

Wow, we’re weird!

We literally seem to have found a way of life in which we’re so filled with a fear of our mistakes being proven as mistaken as we’ve long imagined they might hopefully never have been that we’re instead filled with a willingness to put all of our eggs of hope into this proverbial basket we call life as lived in this land within which we see people dying every single day. Which only adds to our fear. Which then only encourages us, inspires us, all but implores us to continue our embracement of this idea of our only living once.

In fact, we use that as something of an anthemic battle cry anymore!

And people love it for the simple encouragement that it holds as held inside this idea in which we should just go ahead and do whatever we want as, well, we’ll only pay one cost in the end. So yeah, as seen from that perspective, that point of view, sure, run wild, go crazy, do all of whatever your flesh desires to do. Don’t refuse yourself any enjoyment in this world.

After all, this is all we see there is, isn’t it?

And too, the grave is something we all see as waiting for us. So yeah, seeing that we’re all going to die, why embrace a story that asks we get to it sooner?

No, we’ve not the courage to welcome such a joyous hope as eternal life!

We’ll instead settle for just living this one in whatever version of nice we can convince ourselves to try today.

To the full.

But friends, that’s what I’d like you to consider today. What is your life full of? What fills your heart? What defines your hope? Where is your treasure stored, and, in light of the storage situation, what can happen to it?

Because the truth is that which says that where our treasure is is to be the same place as where our heart is, thus proving that our treasure is in our heart and our heart in the treasures we seek. So then whatever can happen to our treasure is the same as can happen to our heart. And well, whatever can happen to our heart is what will happen to our hope. Because our hearts house our hopes, and thus, whatever we hope in is the same as whatever can happen to the hearts and hopes in which it’s housed.

So then, can your hope be stolen, perhaps by death? Can it be lost, such as this life will? Can we break it like we’ve broken His heart over having to watch us walk away all those years only to reach that place in which His Son died to whisper us back? Can it rust? Can it be ruined? Can it be torn or tarnished or tainted, painted, replaced or remodeled? Yes, can our hope be updated?

And if so, well then why are we not hoping bigger?

Yes, why are our hopes held inside or alongside this idea of mind that says life is meant to be lived only to die? Where’s the hope in that? And if there is no hope in that, and there’s none that I can see, then where’s there joy? Where is there meaning? Where is the purpose of that preference for that perspective that says we need to purchase what doesn’t bring us contentment, hope, meaning, joy, reason?

Why continue to share in this lost world’s belief that the very best outcome for a life is to lay dissolving in some cold dark hole in the ground?

I just don’t get it! And granted, we don’t see it that way. Instead we seem to see it as having fun or experiencing life’s fullness, yes, living life to the fullest extremities that we possibly can! But friends, what fullness is there to find within a life emptying of time? What fullness can we feel in that way as found by all in which we fight to find only what feels good? Does pleasure last? Does success continue unchallenged? Does popularity not ebb and flow?

Money come and go?

Where is our hope, and again, what can happen to it there?

See, there is a fullness to life but I just can’t see where there’s fullness to be seen in a life of temporality. I don’t see the fullness in a life lived for fun. Don’t see fullness in excitement or entertainment or our feeling so much of the former in respect to the latter. Yes, I don’t understand why we continue trying to fill our lives with only everything that’s empty, the worst of all being that reality of death being perhaps this life’s grand finale.

What’s so grand about living this life as if we have to just give up living once it’s over?

I just don’t get it.

Because there’s just no fullness to it! And well, whether you believe the Bible or not, does this verse not seem so alive and active that it does in fact inspire you to ask? For all have had things stolen. We’ve all seen things destroyed. All of us have known people who have died, things that have been killed. But, friends, is that where the story ends? And if we do think so, well then what do we know of hope?

Can hope die? Can joy truly be killed? Is peace or purpose or the promise of His purpose being our peace, is that something that can be destroyed?

I hate the fact that I spent years living like that!

Because that’s not a full life. There is in fact no life to be lived in a life lived as if life only dies. No, rather Christ came, as He himself says here, that we might have life and it to the full.

So full in fact that it's only within our first step into forever that we're finally to find it even beginning in what is then the very beginning again of what life was always supposed to be.

Yes, life was always meant to be forever lived within the fullness of He who is goodness and glory and grace and giving us of that promise of a place in which we'll both find and feel, and that for all of forever, all that He's been forever already. And having heard that through the Gospel that turns graves into gardens in which forever’s hope begins growing, now I just can't wait to meet Him face to face and finally feel what I so often haven't within this way of life lived so empty!

For that was never life's intended meaning. We just settled for it because it was deemed easy, safe, normal. Friends, I don't want normal anymore. And I honestly don’t know why any of us would! No, I want life to full, and that for all of us, and so I want Jesus because He's the only One who died to free us by inviting us to do the same.

And in that change our treasure’s place.

Dying to the flesh and in that finally living to the Spirit who is the Son of God and thus the only way to be found within the everlasting presence of the same, friends, that is a treasure that cannot be stolen, lost, torn or tarnished. That is a treasure that cannot be killed, destroyed. That is then a hope, and thus a heart, that cannot be any of the above either. No, for where our treasure is, so too is our heart. And where our heart is, so too our hope.

Please do not keep your hope so hinged upon what you can see, because friends, blinded eyes see nothing. And thus our lives as lived seeking to believe in only what we see, it’s kept us seeing the loss of the cross, the cost He paid as being the same we owe. But no, it was only the cost we owed, that loss He paid. And He paid it that we might find within it the promise of life to the fullest extent and extreme imaginable.

Which is why forever is placed inside of every soul. It gives us something to long for, a better place to call home. Don’t give up on that. Sure, we might not see Heaven from here, and in fact, we may often see instead only that tomb as it looms over our lives. But friends, looks can be deceiving!

And we know this because we’ve long lived thinking that crosses only kill and graves only hold hostage forever those placed within them.

All He’s asking is that we have the audacity to imagine that maybe we’ve been wrong all along.

And that just seems a hope, a heart, a life lived far fuller than any I’ve ever known or tried to find all this time.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold