Day 3785 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 3:10 NIV

Consumed or Consuming

It’s what will become, granted eventually, the very definer of our destiny as deemed then deserved based upon whether or not we’ve, by then, deemed Him the same. Deserved. Deserving to be a bit more specific in regard to this Scripture in particular. For the reality is that all we do as done in what is a choice to do it is done in light of our agreement that such is worth doing and therefore all parties involved worthy of being part of this doing of whatever it is that we’ve chosen to do in agreement with something.

But that’s the question which separates those consumed from the few who welcomed the Consuming.

It’s that asked of us literally every time we set out in life to do something. Even something as small as a single word can carry with it eternal significance as borne beyond this life in either fruit which is to be deemed good or that which is probably already known as bad. And indeed, we have managed to learn to get all of this quite confused around these parts of shattered hearts beating alongside those stone-like and cold. Each and every perhaps a bit of both.

And perhaps that’s what contributed to our apparent inability to determine a fruit’s vicinity to being either good or bad. Alas, to make a simple matter even more complex, we’ve even selfishly derived all of these lies in which we trust to help us thrust our own personal convictions, or basically a resounding lack thereof, unto the things that others around us are doing whilst then not spending hardly any time at all concerned about where we’re going.

And whether we’re inviting the Consuming along the way or just saving up the consumption all for that perceptively distant day when it’ll all just be forcibly consumed anyway.

You see, it’s the forcibly part that should inspire us to start doing whatever we can to avoid that end. Why? Because He talked about millstones and fires and such as possible punishments awaiting those who don’t invite their own being consumed. And indeed, those who do seem to see only reason in putting off the losing that is all consuming are both the vastly more common and thus considered the closest to normal.

And we all want to be normal, and so we all do then what’s most common.

But friends, commonality has never actually been a legally accepted replacement for reality. We just really want it to be one day proven that way simply because we’ll then face no penalty for our having lived basically doing nothing but repeating whatever all the other bearers of worthless fruit are promised to win.

Which is being consumed by force as they lived in enmity right up until the very start of eternity and have then no time left to second guess what they’ve done and why.

Though, being the provisional kind of guy He’s always been, He’s promised to provide them all of forever in which to rethink what should have been done, only then without any hope of undoing what He’s already levied.

Which is why we should invite the leveling that is the Consuming rather than leaving it to the end and only then realizing that we were all going to be burned up anyway in light of the lost way of life we’d lived so far from the Light of life that we should have seen our death as both perfectly due and thus immensely unavoidable long before it came to prove it was. It’s just that, again, such an agreement is far from common as the culture we’re in is in contention still against He who is the Consuming.

Simply because none of us here want to lose anything we have, anything we are, anything we want, this life as lived dreaming on every star to shoot into our skies and suddenly change our lives into the vastly better that we never once even attempted to seek other help in their being simply reset to remaining again. And it truly is just as simple as our calling upon the Name that is above all others and living as He is our brother, our sister, our mother.

I mean, He said that those who followed Him were the same, and considering all the sharing in His path that He talked about, probably wouldn’t hurt for Him to be considered our everything either.

But rather we don’t. We don’t let Him so consume our lives. We don’t deem Him worthy of such a fealty as to flat out draw some lines and cut what might be a bunch of stuff out of our minds. We don’t consider the Christ to be of much worthy of being considered at all. For if we did, well, we’d probably not find so much of this struggle to continue having in regard to such things as surrender and service and self-denial.

For if we knew Him as Lord and Savior then we’d save nothing else from the fire if for nothing else than to see what of us is able to stand the test. We’d elate at the opportunity to be tested so as to see both what of us is right and what all isn’t, all so that we could, as is done by all such pruning situations, remove that which is basically only stealing nutrients and thus offer said nourishment unto what will withstand in the end.

We are told, as we’ve mentioned a time or two of late, that our work will be shown for what it is when it is tested with fire. He tried it once with water, and while some of us got the picture, alas it seems that the Egyptians were the ones who held onto the message best as the rest only went on their way into His promise only to there forget His purpose in having done so much to gain their freedom and bless them with this free land so filled with hope and peace that they didn’t need to really worry about anything.

Can you imagine that? A life in which we had no worries, knew no wants, faced no wars, felt no fears? Wow! What an incredible peace that must be!

If only we could see that He’s been offering it since time began only to find us still refusing it in preference of such things as pride and popularity.

Yes, such things are now the drugs of the masses, medicinal mundanity made available from and for all of this fallen humanity. It ails all which offers to cure, harms any who come to bring healing, hates all who even suggest that we need healing for our hearts that we don’t want to see are deceptive beyond cure. No, we’re instead quite seemingly sure that everything we’re doing is all that’s worth being done simply because of all it has us finding and feeling under the sun.

It’s just that the sun isn’t the only light in life that we can perhaps be scorched by.

No, in fact there’s another who doesn’t just stop at scorching but rather promises an eternity of unending suffering as found stuck inside the everlasting flame of having lived a life refusing the blame that He came to take on our behalf so that we could be no longer half alive. And truly my friends, that is at best all we’ve ever really been. Just half. Half alive. Half hot. Half cold. Half here. Half there. Half interested. Half indifferent.

But let me ask you this: What is half fruitful?

What is half useful? What is half hopeful? What is halfway home? Is it not still halfway not? This all literally makes so much sense that it’s beyond elementary in understanding. And yet here we’re standing as if we just don’t get it. For daily we’re doing still all that shouldn’t still be done. Which is a choice only made in either ignorance or stupidity.

We either don’t know the difference between right and wrong, nor thus what’s coming because of our penchant for the latter, or we’re simply stupid enough to live as if doesn’t really matter.

There is no other choice.

And yet, sadly, we’ve all lived for quite some time telling everyone all about how much we know.

Thus we’re either lying or we’re losing, based again upon the difference between consumed and Consuming.

For in simple terms, and a fast-forwarding of sorts, everything and everyone will be consumed. This world and all that’s in it is promised to be tested with fire as in the process of refinement so as to determine that which has been built upon the solidity of a hope in a Savior from that which isn’t and thus hasn’t any real solidity at all. And yeah, we can waste our time talking about how strong or smart or rich or whatever we like to think ourselves to be in light of what we’ve long agreed to matter.

But the fact remains that there comes a fire that will consume everything.

The gift is that we’re given these days in which to welcome His consuming of what we’re promised to be soon losing before the very same is rather taken violently away and we’re then left with absolutely nothing. We either welcome Christ to consume us from the inside, burning away all that doesn’t bear good fruit and thus isn’t welcome into that Garden where only such is allowed to go and grow, or we don’t. We confess and repent and ask Him to help us continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, as best felt with feet held to the flame of His Name, or we refuse such refinement.

Either way, the fire’s still coming.

Point is that we can either be used to it when it gets here, or we can go on living to make Him prove Himself once more, thus putting Him to the test all over again, and thus proving that we never cared to see Him as anything of truth or life or the Way by which both are combined.

He remains the Way, the Truth, the Life. We then either remain in a life avoiding that truth or we surrender our way unto His and, in this, find His death given in exchange for our life.

It really makes so much sense that, again, you either have to ignorant or stupid to confuse it as much as we have.

And as much as we don’t like to think we’re ignorant, surely we can’t still be this stupid!

Because friends, the axe is already ready. The felling of this forest of the fallen is already calling. The finality of our days, be them ours alone or that promised as is coming to all at once, it’s nearer now than ever before. Question then is whether we see such a promise in light of that other in His Word which reads that our salvation is also nearer now.

The difference being that whole part about “than when you first believed.”

For indeed, such is the ticket to board this train. It’s bought by believing both that Christ is the Son and thus the One we should be seeking to serve and satisfy. Not that we can really do either anything close to well, but well, we can try. And in fact, that’s pretty much all He’s asking. That we try. That we attempt. That we prevent all of our old excuses from continuing to prevent our losses of a life all but already lost. Again, the day is coming and in fact gets closer with every breath.

What all do we want to be found having to still let go?

No, such is why He comes as the Consuming unto all who admit this life we’re losing and just see reason in getting the losses lost so as to then start to find the joy of the coming forever as opposed to only a continuance of the common fear of it coming as if out of nowhere. I mean, we often seem a people who live as if we like to see things coming. Why then not our considering of what we know is well on the way? And I’m not even talking about Judgement Day, no, I’m just talking about that day that we wake up only to find that we’re not here anymore.

Indeed, why don’t worry about that more than we do? Why do we worry still about all these other things instead? Why is He still asked to bunk and bed with such things in our head and heart as what to eat and what to wear? Does He care? To a degree I suppose, but suppose there are things more important to be concerned about.

Things such as where we’re going to spend forever and whether or not it’s in the fire!

Personally, I never much cared for the heat. Always been a fall guy, not as in the kind that takes the blame for another’s mistakes, but as in I really like fall, as in autumn, like October and apples and all the leaves changing colors. It’s cooler, calmer, truly a beautiful time of the year. And so one of my fears is being found forever in that place where it’s so stinking hot that we can’t even die!

And so I’ll start now. The dying part. The losing part. The part to which we’re called to share in Him regarding the laying down of a life that’s riddled with sin and the death it wins. For such is the wage, and it will be collected upon that coming day. Will we there and then be consumed by the fires we’ve both started but avoided getting help putting out? Or will we rather be found as having been already consumed by the Consuming Fire that already burned up all there was in us that wasn’t alive enough to produce the good fruit in which God delights?

And sure, some could argue, and many do, that such is rude or hateful or unkind, this judging of fruit and calling anything bad. But friends, none of us eat rotten apples. Nobody enjoys moldy grapes. There’s not a persona alive that prefers their bananas all black and gooey.

Thus we’re all already used to judging fruit as either good or bad. Why can’t we then accept that He who created us reserves the same right? Why can’t we embrace the gift that He daily gives in His helping us to rid our lives of what isn’t bearing fruit worth being welcomed? Why don’t we want to stop living a worthless way of life spent winning what doesn’t matter when we could be living one in Him that wins for us a continually swelling hope as to the coming of our King to take us home?

I don’t want anything in my life that dares keep my eyes from looking to the skies and begging those clouds to part!

And thankfully, I think He would agree.

That there should be nothing in our lives that prevents us from pursuing Him as if our lives depend upon it. Why? Because He knows they do as He’s the One who died so that we could understand that. Friends, we have no hope greater than Christ, and so why then not let He who is our only hope consume our lives and so rid them of everything keeping us dead in a basket of fruit so bad that we ourselves live to hide it?

Why continue to hide what will be brought to light? Why not rather take it to Him and let Him do with it what only He can? Yes judge it. Yes weigh it. Yes despise it. But also yes, save it. He will judge all we do. He will remove from us all that doesn’t bear good fruit. He will throw every tree into the fire that doesn’t deserve to go on producing fruit in keeping with evil or denial or hatred or greed or jealousy or lust. Why not let Him cut that stuff out of us so that we’re not found bearing that fruit on that day when the axe gets to work?

Friends, I know we’re a people vastly convinced that we shouldn’t have to lose anything or change anything. But the promise is that not all will sleep but all will be changed. Will we find all of our change forced on us at once? Or will we have built instead a first-name basis with He who we’ve by then been visiting with as if a daily surgeon helping us starve away all of what has us dying?

He didn’t create us bear the fruit we’ve been known for bearing. And so something has to give. We can either give up trying to keep doing this all our way and welcome what is His help with consuming all that’s in us that isn’t welcome near Him. Or we can live this life still insistent that He prove it.

Make no mistake, He will.

But if we force Him to remove from us anything we’re unwilling to surrender, don’t be surprised when you find then no end to that fire of His fury as forced upon you as well.

He offers us a way out. And sure, it still involves fire and things being burned up. But along His Way, we’re not the ones left burnt but rather is only all that we were never meant to be anyway.

And that just seems a better end than that which awaits those who refuse to lose what all of us will. Don’t make Him take it by force. Offer it in faith and then you’ll find that the fire doesn’t scorch, it only saves. It’s kind of like one of those controlled fires that it deliberately set in order to burn away the fuel that a raging fire would use to only destroy more.

Yes, why let sin continue to only destroy more than it already has? Let Him instead come in and destroy all that’s still weak and lazy and faithless in us so that sin can’t keep getting the better of us?

After all, He who died on our behalf deserves our best, not only whatever’s left.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold