Day 3801 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Colossians 3:7 NIV

The life once lived

It’s something we all have, or at least I pray. Indeed, I hope and beg that as of today we’ve all found new ways in which we walk in what is a new life that’s left the existence of an old life no longer existent as surrendered unto the call for all to share in the sacrifice of a life as was lived within the wage that all sin wins. Yes, my greatest hope for all mankind is that we all know Jesus Christ as Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Savior of us. And thus so too is my greatest worry that we’re not as weary as we ought to be of a life we’ve lived that of which we should be now only leery of it remaining in anyway whatever.

No, if we can agree unto the need of our soul’s saved, well then my friends so too must we admit that if such a thing cost Christ His death then we must ourselves come to make at least some sort of change in light of it.

Elsewise how are we to know whether or not we’re the new He came to lead us into the laying down of the old to find?

And if we haven’t any real evidence toward which to point which says we have indeed been made in His kind of new, as made so novel in the grave from which it grows, well then how are we to know where we’re aimed if we’re not on the same plain as He flew when He left this place?

And if we don’t know that we’re on that plane that is the cross which is a bridge that expands the chasm between the life we’ve lived and that we were made to love as was given us in the same, a bridge paved in change, then how can we hold within our hearts that hope of treasures being stored where treasures can’t be stolen?

And if our treasures are still able to be stolen or lost or forgotten, well then friends how much of us can we truly say has changed much at all?

Let alone enough for us to offer up any honesty as to the presence in us of the kind of humility that smiles at this daily opportunity to take up crosses and carry upon them the daily losses of a life we’re all losing anyway!

And since we are all losing this life no matter what we do, what we have, what we lose, well why not lose whatever we have to give if setting aside such impending ruins is what might offer us some of the best reason to believe that both He is there and that because we’re not where we once were living as who we were once as known entirely too long within that life that we can only say that we once lived if in fact we’re not living it anymore?

Which brings me to today’s question, as was asked several posts back and just never really managed to leave my mind, leaving me to believe that it’s worth revisiting:

Will you lay down your life for you?

Granted, seems something of a confusing asking in that its very premise appears to be entirely counterproductive. I mean, after all, even if we were to say yes, which none of us would without a reason far solid enough to give us the awareness of a greater lack of loss than such a loss of life might come to find, even if we were to say yes, well, what would be the outcome? For again, it seems that laying down a life, which is a fairly poetic way to say the sacrificing of the same, it can only really ever result in the loss of life that such was always so clearly to be.

Laying down a life is giving up a life, giving up on a life, giving away a life. And so, even should we say that, yes, we would lay down our lives for us to live better lives, still this seems something of an almost perfect counter productivity in that you can’t continue to live a life that you’ve lain down. You gave it up. You walked away. You moved on and left it behind. But the realization seems to be that if we were to leave life behind, give it up, lay it down, walk away, well then it would be life itself that we left, gave up, laid down, walked away from.

And considering how the most logical goal in all of life is to continue living it, well, again this just seems a question, even before being answered, that’s entirely counterproductive and thus perhaps not even worth considering.

But friends, it’s pretty much the question that Christ asked us all when He Himself had left that tomb behind as was asked every single time that He’d mentioned something in the way of following Him, sharing in Him, trusting in Him. And indeed, this question about whether or not we’d lay down our lives for ourselves to have life, as is what Jesus did for us, that is in fact the ask as is to be answered within the presence of His presence proving a life having been lived for what we can, by then, either choose or refuse to choose to cut loose and leave behind.

No, upon that coming Day of our every judgement, what will be met is the very outcome of our every soul’s eternity as sown inside that scene shown inside the things we’ve seen and what they’ve shown of a life either sewn in the Son or simply coming so completely apart at the seams that we’ll be seen as are those then too far gone to be brought home.

And thus the necessity of the complexity of what’s here said to be a “life we once lived.”

For such seems to hint at the existence of a life no longer existent. That’s what the word ‘once’ tends to aim toward. It’s the presence of something proven only to have passed. It’s a preference we had in the past, a passion we knew in the past, a pretense we allowed for in the past, a pride we followed into that life we once lived, in the past. Or, again, at least I hope. Why? Because again my friends, if we haven’t any undeniable evidence of changes so radical in us then how are we to ever be able to say that we have been changed?

Which, according to His Word, is the very promise given unto all of us.

Not all will sleep but all will be changed!

And indeed, while on the surface His example of the sort change He’s talking about, a change met in the way of sacrifice, it’s such a violent alteration because that’s all that can best accomplish such a present accomplishment as the presence of a life we once lived as then was lived within the past as an entire life we once lived but now live no longer, thus a life we used to live, a life we once lived and likely even loved.

Which is the problem.

Because it’s not that He calls us to get rid of things we were already thinking about letting go. It’s not that He asks us to surrender those things that we were already tired of hanging around. It isn’t that His greatest request is our sacrificing things that we’ve already come to despise. No, He instead asks that we lay down these lives that we’ve each spent our entire lives trying to protect and perfect. He asks us to surrender such things as personal comfort, public praise, future plans and even past shames that we likely haven’t even realized are there quite yet.

Thankfully He helps with that.

Unfortunately hindsight sucks!

Why? Because it helps us see in a far better clarity the presence of mistakes we made in the way we used to live that, if still unchanged, may well be causing us to make the very same mistakes unto the feeling of the very same shame. That’s why we all hate such feelings as guilt and regret. It’s because they leave us perfectly aware of our longstanding inability to be anywhere near as perfect as we’ve long tried to convince even ourselves we either could be or already were.

But friends, the issue at hand is that He doesn’t ask us to simply be made aware of some of the mistakes we’ve made. He asks us to sacrifice that entire way of life that was so clearly able to have made so many for however long we made them alongside the many excuses we also made that we made only trying to cover them so that we’d not have to admit that we’d made either the mistakes nor the excuses that kept them hidden for however long they have.

For however long we allow them still to try.

And indeed, it’s that way of life that He calls us to lay so fully down that it becomes the life we once lived.

And yes, while His example, as carried in crosses and encompassed in the same, does seem to suggest that of a whole life as is what’s to be the only thing ever considered anywhere close to acceptable in terms of the satisfying of the call, again given unto us all, of our too now sharing ourselves in His kind of a life’s sacrificing, what if the point is that the life we'll lose as lived on the surface is rather only the getting rid of the one that looked for life only on the surface and thus, with the surface no longer our limit, the too then finding of the new kind able to find He who is the Way that will lead us all unto the finding of the life that life can't find?

Yes, what if, despite it still a massive request, what if His asking us to lay down a life so that it can die and then become a life we once lived as will be, by then, a life no longer lived and thus no longer alive, what if that life is only the loss of the kind of life that cannot find the life that He gave His life for us to find?

What if He asks us to give up everything we know because that’s the only way we can find everything we don’t?

Indeed, what if He’s only asking us to surrender unto sacrifice all we’ve ever known of life, as is destined to perish as placed in a place destined unto the same, what if He’s only asking that we lay down all we’ve ever known of that kind of never-lasting life so that we can then take up the knowledge and awareness and appreciation and zealous passion for the promise we’ve all been given of everlasting life?

Doesn’t seem like such a bad trade after all!

For the fact is that we’ve all lived for the most commonly known way of life as lived on the surface, be that of this world or the superficiality which all but defines it, and that in a somehow deeper measure every single day. But friends, have any of us ever found eternal life living that way? Or has not every single human died the death that every life owes? (Talked about that yesterday if you care to go back and read the buildup as poured for today’s post to continue building upon.)

Which is that every life owes a death due to what we’ve all lived giving our lives to.

Now granted, it is true that there are those three recounted in the Word that never died such an earthly death. But considering how there have been billions if not trillions of people who’ve lived on this earth, are we really willing to wager our forever on those kinds of odds? And that done only in light of the many odd things we’ve done that both hindsight and regret say we shouldn’t have ever even been able to think about?

Those three got out of here alive because God found them worth such a reward.

We really think He sees us the same?

No, because neither are we that righteous, as proven in what Christ endured for us, and so nor are the odds for us all that great of our getting of this alive too! Rather we who’ve lived on the surface of this world’s surface seeking our success and substance only always within and upon the same, well, we’ve left behind entirely too many chances to have done the right thing to now be considered anything of righteous in any way.

Which is why He calls us to lose and let go of so many things.

It’s not because He doesn’t want us to have anything, enjoy anything. It’s rather simply because of how much twisted enjoyment we continue to find inside only all we have. For, as we just discussed, what we have is only all that asks that we give it life. And thus all we have or hope to soon is the very same as the very things that continue to, get this, steal and kill and destroy this very life we’re living and losing because of all we’ve lost to everything that’s already stolen, killed and/or all but eternally destroyed all that we could have been had we not been so willing to keep living for things on the surface of a life lived on the surface of a land we’re all promised to leave cold, tired and alone.

Question then becomes will we have anything waiting within that hole into which we’re thrown waiting to catch us?

I mean, we could as He entered the grave first in order to meet us there whenever He’s planned for us to meet Him there. But then again that comes down to just how deep down we’re willing to go in search of something to know of the life still to come as was won by His sharing the loss that He now calls us to share in. Which, again, is indeed an entire way of life. But again my friends, what if the point is that the life He calls us to lose is only that one lived unable to find the kind of life that life has never been able to find because of the worldly places it knows to look?

See, that’s why He asks us to do now just that as suggested in our beginning to store our treasures in Heaven. It’s because this world isn’t our home and nor then able to offer us anything that’s able to last long enough to be worth near enough to be considered treasure. Issue then is that we’ve never really seen it that way. Which is, again, what needs to change before it’s changed for us.

Which is what He meant when He said that not all would sleep but all would be changed. For we may not even die before He parts those skies and sets to judging our lives.

Which is also why He asks us now to take up our crosses and nail to them every one of our losses of something that was never alive to begin with in order to start narrowing down what life really is and what truly makes it worth living. Because the fact is that it ain’t jobs or titles or trinkets or triumphs. No, what makes life worth living is the hope that we can keep living it.

But friends, that’s the problem.

It’s that we can’t if all we continue to live it for is all that gets left behind. So why then live for those things any longer? Not only because we can’t keep them anyway, but also because they’re all He’s asking us to lose in order to find the gift of life lived with Him forever? Yes, He’s just asking us to let go of all that won’t be welcomed in Heaven.

But if we truly hope to be found there someday, well then what would we ever care to hold onto if it might keep us from being welcomed in?

No, that’s all the stuff that perhaps once did matter to us. It was the things we learned to hold dear or believe important. It’s the way of life lived for things we can live without. It’s the common existence as built inside the assumption that life consists of an abundance of things, theories, possessions or plans. It’s the continuing of our choice to live this life that same way, finding then only more of the same things that we’ve already found thanks to having changed nothing.

Which is the very definition of insanity.

And well, when you see it that way, it really seems insane to refuse His asking us to lay down a life of insanity for that promised to live for all eternity.

I mean, we can continue to make this all as convoluted and confusing as we for some reason have always delighted for it to seem. But still that Day comes either way. So why not allow it to be as simple as the cross has always said it was?

And sure, there’s not much all that simple about the cross as it displays a life dispelled. But again, if all we lose is the way of life we’ve lived that’s long kept us from finding the kind of life that doesn’t end, well, don’t really see that we’re losing all that much.

In fact, just seems like finding all we’ve been looking for!

#LeaveNoSoulUntold