Day 3789 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 3:15 NIV

If it survives

So shall it receive a reward given unto such salvation as undertaken in what is a partnership with He who already finished said achievement only to thereafter ask that we ourselves take part in it in what is the continuation of our own working it out within what is a walk walked within fear and trembling in regard to the faith we’re building as is to be built in Him if we’re to share in Him and thus survive the fire that comes for all. For the fire does come, leaving all then that’s left our own now choosing what will be left when it has passed.

Or rather simply continuing to choose to just not worry about such a warning.

And while the latter has proven the matter to matter most to most, all of us in fact, the point remains that promises are promises whether or not we like the wording. Which is something we talked about at fairly good length not to awful long ago, that distinction between promise and warning and how both are basically one and the same but that the one which seems to hint at the possibility of blame is often the same as that which we hate. And that so much that we might not pay it any heed whatever.

But again friends, whether we like the wording of a warning really carries no weight within this war. For He never asked us to enjoy all of what we’re to face. He rather just asked that we not run away like we always have from what He has sent already as what He is still to be sending is coming in order to help us make ready for the fact that we’re all to face the fire with the express challenge of proving ourselves as having been refined enough by He who is the Consuming kind of such, or likewise, unable to pass said muster and thus be ushered out of His presence.

For a people who’ve by then so long refused to welcome His will to lead the Way simply for the flame for which it is so often aimed, they’re too the same who’ll not be forced to then see Him as Father or Friend either.

Because God chose for this faith to be a relationship was done within the understanding that every such pairing is in fact a requirement of a pair working together to make it work out. And too then that should one of the parties meant to be involved choose instead to seek no such involvement, then He wouldn’t force the matter. For He’s given us all the freewill to choose Him or deny Him, and each then will receive the just reward in regard to whatever choice we make.

For He is simply that just of a Father, a fact proven in that He will not force us to remain in His presence should we have lived showing Him clearly that we preferred the presence of others, be them things, thoughts, theories, even trinkets we’ve bought. He will allow us all to choose our reward and will actually ensure that we have it in as full a measure as we might like.

The trick then is to be supremely careful as to what you ask for, because again, we will in fact get it.

But this brings to mind that most fearful of promise as written within His Word in regard to the hobbies of those living hiding in the plain sight of all hypocrisy. For as Matthew 6:2 says unto all who do anything in order to be seen or noticed or applauded or appreciated by those who are here looking for such things as those being done by only those who do them so as to be noticed doing them rather than for the mere act of doing them, “they have received their reward in full.”

And indeed, I struggle to think of another promise more potentially heartbreaking than that one as I cannot imagine that outcome in which this life in this land was truly our reward. Now that’s not at all to say that I’m ungrateful for this life nor then the plethora of undeserved gifts that I’ve most definitely been given within it. No, I’m simply saying that I cannot imagine this life being as good as it gets what with all the hatred and hardship we face here.

Surely there must be something more in someplace better!

And indeed there is! Problem then is that while there is that promise of the verse just prior to this one in Paul’s letter to Corinth in which it’s said that any builder whose building survives the promised fire that is already well on the way will in fact receive a reward, a reward which just feels as if it hints at what’s read in James 1:12, a verse we discussed not long ago itself.

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

For we see within that promise both the presence of the testing of a trial which calls for the kind of perseverance that’s obviously willing to continue the struggling through what will prove able to prove quite sufferable, but also then too the existence of the promise of a reward given unto those who do in fact persevere through what will prove a struggle with suffering seeking the reward promised unto all who keep going.

But that then defines the problem in that we’ve all come to become quite content with the content of the current. So much so in fact that we’ve all lived as if we wouldn’t mind never leaving, and thus live for what isn’t coming back. For that too is a promise given within His Word as is evident within the building we discussed yesterday, which is what’s being still discussed in this verse here today.

It’s the building of a life as done with bricks of personal belief and the mortar of what we alone think to matter. And so this building is something that all of us are doing as each of us are quite obviously living a life, and equally obvious is that each of these lives we’re living are in fact being lived by and for quite different ideas and ideals. For all of us have our own unique priorities, and our faith as placed within them being worthy of such devotion is what in fact will prove the foundation upon which the rest of whoever it is that we choose to become will come to stand.

Simply because faith is the basis for all that we do in life as we must at first believe in what we’re doing before we’ll ever agree to even try to do it.

And thus we see that all we do, all we want, all we need, it’s all combined into a way of life that is what will be tested upon that Day by that Fire that has already came to show us how to do what truly needs to be done in order to pass the coming test with colors truly able to fly shortly thereafter.

Home, that is, and that only upon the wings of a hope fulfilled in He who came with the express purpose of both giving us that hope within which we shift our understanding of home, but also then to obviously call our attention to the many misplaced replicas being placed in many things that either can’t come with us when we leave this place or simply wouldn’t be welcomed even would they could.

And make no mistake, we’ve each a passel of such peculiarities to either start working on or simply keep walking from.

Sadly the reward is one so lofty because of the fact that so many will never do what’s necessary to get it. For the greater the promise, the greater those who fail to find it. And yet, as people prone to preferring profit and popularity for the comfort they both promise, we’re again quite content to skip the content of His portent and simply keep living as if the fire ain’t coming.

A choice chosen simply because we don’t feel the heat yet.

Or do we?

See, I’m convinced that not feeling His leading is next to impossible as each of us have a conscience. Each of us know at least some measure of the difference between right and wrong. Each of us can just feel in our bones that some things are off and thus shouldn’t be done, wanted or won. Each of us have in fact done things in the past of which we’re now ashamed. And, as His Word asks, what have we gained in what is now the wake of our having done those things of which we are now ashamed?

And even worse, how much bigger will that shame problem prove upon that day when all our lives have been lived building will be proven unable to stand?

That’s why He warns us of what’s coming, and even went so very far as to show us a few hour snippet of what it will be like. Issue then is that while said sample is seen inside His suffering on the cross and then being tossed into a tomb, we don’t ourselves have any kind of three-day evacuation plan at the ready. Rather, in light of how what we’ve done within our lives having built unto that crescendo of Calvary, we each deserve what He endured for all eternity.

What then will we have gained that made that kind of suffering worth it?

Friends, there simply isn’t anything in existence that would make it worth it to be turned away from Heaven. And yet we’re sadly promised that as the path there will prove ever narrowing and thus quite harrowing, so too shall there be but few who are found welcome once we all reach the finish line. Why? Because most simply won’t welcome the losses that will allow us to win in the end. And that simply because we’re all quite easily convinced that we’ve plenty here to want, win, worry about trying to enjoy before our end comes.

In fact, there are a great many who either have or presently are living a way of life trying to build up the evidence that they’re not leaving at all.

None have ever proven successful, for even the idea of cryogenics would only find one thawed back into this world.

And, well, again, I for one cannot imagine the best possible outcome finding us only once more still here in what’s likely to be a world in even worse shape in the however many years/decades/centuries/millennia that this place still has left.

You know, considering the current trajectory.

Thankfully He has given us His promises of such things as our being tested for the express purpose of our being willing to start losing now what none of us can keep, or will likely want to should the world continue in the direction it’s going. But it again all comes down to a choice, or rather a lifetime collection thereof, as made in what becomes a story we’ve each lived with either a moral aimed for or rather just more mistakes we were elsewise unwilling to try to stop aiming toward.

For again, it’s the mistakes we’ve made in what we’ve built so far that cost Christ the cross. If we then continue building what’s basically the same life spent doing mostly the same things or what are merely slightly tweaked versions thereof, well then we’re basically only telling Him that His suffering didn’t mean enough to us to inspire in us a willingness to raze our rewards as already won and seek then something better as given us inside of the Son.

And well, when considered from that perspective, yeah, it’s pretty easy to see why God would turn us away.

It’s not what He wants to as the cross clearly shows that He doesn’t. In fact, Christ himself came to prove that He’d rather die than our have to endure what we deserve as He knows we cannot survive the same. And so He came and took the blame, embraced the beating, poured out the bleeding in order to begin the freeing of any and all who then heed the call to look at what we’ve been doing and who it’s defined us as being and find in the horror of it all a desperation to do something different.

After all, if we want a different outcome then we have to give a different input.

For doing the same things again and again whilst always only expecting the different results that clearly cannot come, well that’s just insane.

Which so too have we been. For we have been basically only alive repeating our routines and ruts for so long now that we simply ignore the rust and deny the ruin. In fact, each of us have done that for so long now that we’ve all known well that way in which we all but denied Christ simply because His cost asks that we pay something too. Not that He demands we split the tab, but rather that He deserves to see inside of us a willingness to at least let go of what we, in Him, come to realize helped hold Him in that place in a sort of suffering we can’t even begin to fathom.

Yes, He should see in us the building of something new, something different, something better that thus desires to be better perpetually. For that’s all that the very best really is, it’s just the eventual finish line of a better that never gave up seeking even better until there was nothing better left to be.

Haven’t really done that though, have we?

No, speaking personally, there’ve been a great many times within my life in which better wasn’t really something I worried about. Simply because better always asks that we consider that what is already isn’t truly the best there is. Which again speaks to how this life we’re living within this land so lost surely cannot be the best there is when it comes to life being lived. I mean, again, not that I’m not thankful to be alive, but folks, we’ve really messed some stuff up!

Which is all, every single one of our many mistakes and misunderstandings, seedy massage parlors and mysterious murders, they’re all but perfect proof that we suck at building. For God had none of this stuff in mind when He placed man in a Garden. And yet, instead of our staying, we instead chose chaos, violence, hatred, lust, greed, impurity the lot. We chose this mess!

Why keep building it?

After all, again, Calvary shows us what He thinks of it! And pleased isn’t really the word!! I’d say disgusted is a little bit closer. Heartbroken does pretty well. Absolutely enflamed with anger and fury is probably the closest our feeble minds can get to how He must feel. And indeed, enflamed has the word flame in it! Which is what’s coming!

Ain’t that ironic?

Friends, my point is that we’ve all been building a life that will be tested in the same way regardless of what we build. Is what we’re building then going to prove able to survive the test that’s coming? Will our lives withstand the fire? Will whatever we’ve placed our faith within prove strong enough to stand up the refinement that all of us will in fact experience? Again, we’ll not all sleep but we all gonna change!

Just how much change, and perhaps more importantly, when will it begin taking place?

Are we going to wait to change until the end? Or are we going to welcome Him in and let Him start changing us now? Waiting until the end is obviously easier, but it also leaves us absolutely no time to test what we’ve built. Testing what we’re building along the way is most definitely far more difficult, but it helps us to better make sure that we’re ready for that Day when best comes to test what we’ve built and see if it’s anywhere close to the example.

Yes, we’ve been given an example, and though Christ’s life here was one spent in a way we’d not choose to walk and in fact met its end in a misery we can’t imagine, just look at what He built! He built a bridge to Heaven!! Are we at least humble enough to let Him show us what we need to lose if we’re to cross it? Or are we instead still building additions onto our longstanding indifference?

Friends, we will each be tested in regard to what we built in and with our lives. Will yours pass? Will you pass? Will you receive the best of all rewards? Or will you have already received your reward and therefore have none left to receive?

Please don’t continue to live that way you have in which you have sought your reward within this world. For while there may be some really nice things here, there are some really horrific things here too. So don’t let this place be proven as your reward and thus Heaven only your loss. Rather live to lose this place and let Him make your Way to Heaven’s peace.

For such is the reward to be given to those whose buildings (lives) survive the fire that’s coming.

And while we may not be able to truly build much of anything that’s able to withstand His coming test, we can, as suggested here, we can at least try.

After all, trying to live for Christ and continuing to fail and fall short is far better than not trying at all. For while we may still let Him down and find ourselves turned around a time or twenty, at least we’ll be able to say we knew His Name and tried to do better by He who did His very best for us.

No, our buildings may never be the best ever built, and we’ll all still need His mercy then to save us. But friends, there’s no way we can count on that mercy if we never even try to live as if He’s there to give it!

Either way the fire’s coming.

Just what all will He burn up once He gets here?

Promise here is that we’re all going to lose something. Let Him show you how to live a life in which the something we lose isn’t everything we have.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold