Day 3884 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Jeremiah 3:3 NIV

Brazen

It’s a people brave in what is a trade in in which they slave in their made dens of chosen sins as held close to them as they live within what has long been a way of life lived without Him who is the Head of we who were called to live as if the body which does only as and goes only where the Head so holds for what is our hope of what is a home in which we are not so bold as to die so slow as in this way in which we grow so cold and alone in what has become a life well known for that brazen look of a soul that’s been sold.

And that to the lowest of all bidders.

For that is what we’ve accepted in exchange for our chance to change into a people who live this life to chase what is the waste of all that is for the joy of reaching for all which isn’t. No, we’re seeing a world increasingly content with the current who mind not then that it’s pulling us so far under that we have now so many who live here daily as if wrong is right and dark is light and black is white and sin is might simply because they’re lost inside this night in which they’re the knights who are so strong that they need no shining armor in which to save.

Simply because the shine would sting the eyes of both they and any other who has for so long lived so blind that any hint of light is seen as the fright of life itself. Yes, we’ve become afraid of living life as it was at first intended. And why? Because such a design as designed to abide beside both He who made us and the humility in which that understanding would so constantly inspire, well, it’s very much indeed the funeral pyre for every ounce of personal pride and the vastly cherished prize that is now an all but perfected pretense.

Indeed, to stand anywhere within any reach of God’s presence would all but instantly take from us all the dross that is our delight as held inside those things we hold so tight thinking them each the very home of every hope itself. Not that we’ve ever actually managed to achieve the audacity to crack them open and let out the hope we hope to be held inside. For that would be in itself an act all but betraying in nature.

Because to look inside our many false gods and misplaced devotions would ask that we step into a question as to whether we should continue to trust them. And it just feels so wrong to consider such questions when we’ve lived this long finding hope enough in just our ability to retain the opportunity to look at them.

It’s like those potato chips that people think look like Elvis or the Mona Lisa. It would be foolish to eat them as then they wouldn’t look like their counterparts anymore.

And so we settle for continuing to store our every hope as if some uncracked egg upon the shelves both in our houses and in our hearts. Then we further settle for wondering why they never do all that much. They just sit there. Or they hang on the wall. Or they lay motionless upon the floor of our garage until we ourselves step unto them and put the key in and start the engine that is our insinuation that they could do all of that without us, but that they instead allow us to offer them our fealty so that we can feel in contact with them more fully.

Yes, it’s not that our many idols and ideals have themselves no life to live and thus ask ours of us, no, it’s that they offer us a chance to learn the boldness that it is to freely give what we cannot keep unto all that will happily continue to take what it itself cannot give in return.

Don’t worry about that part though, for after all, we walk within a world in which so many others are doing the very same thing that, if needed, we could all join forces and stand as one against however many of whoever may come against us. A fact proven already in that One weird guy that came that one time claiming that He’d come to open blinded eyes and even apparently brought the dead back to life.

Even claimed He would do the same of Himself.

And in three days nonetheless!

Though He referred to Himself as the Temple and went into some story about how He would tear it down and rebuild it in those three days. And well, I’ve never seen anybody build a building in three days. Never seen anyone who was blind receive their sight. The deaf I know are still as deaf as they’ve always been. And yeah, I’ve most certainly never met a previously dead man.

Or have I?

Well, I’ll be honest when I say that somedays I’m still quite unsure. For at times it feels like I have, even so much so that I sometimes feel as if I was that dead guy who is in fact in the process of coming back to life. I literally talked to God about that last night. And yet then come again those days in which it’s only my old ways that I seem to remember far better unto the very betrayal of that hope of my eyes being themselves those once blind thanks to my once deaf ears that did seem to hear the sound of something so amazing that it couldn’t possibly be true.

At least not as provable as the paths I’ve already walked within what’s been a world that doesn’t do nearly as much walking as it does talking. And well, I’ll just be brutally honest again and say that I don’t really understand much of what I hear around here anymore. And that I seem to be losing the stomach to see what so many are so happy to continue doing. And that my heart breaks in new ways in new these new days filled with old things that seem chains that only hold us to past hopes that we again seem to believe we’ve already found without having found the courage to crack them open and see if we’re right.

Not worth the risk I guess.

Because I think we know what we’d find. And that is the glimmering gold seen from the outside would be gone the moment we started chiseling away said veneer to see more clear what all hides inside. I think we’re actually quite terrified to realize that our little golden hopes are nothing more than lead balloons that could thus never take us quite so high as all hope resides.

And that would be a pretty crushing feeling I’d imagine.

Thankfully I don’t have to imagine as I find myself still often at that rock bottom of my coming to see that one more of my perfectly placed plans has somehow gone other than accordingly. No, still today not much in life goes all that close to going as wonderfully as I’d otherwise like it to go. But I’m learning. I’m trying. I’m finding inside this daily audacity to seek further the death of me who was the he who did the things this world still does.

Yes, I still slip up and catch myself saying those words I don’t like the sound of or thinking those old thoughts I started hating the idea of or realizing the many ways in which my better life still lays smoldering in ashes behind me thanks to my hands and feet having chosen to race after the world rather than He who created it. And I hate it. I hate it all in fact. I utterly despise every time I look up to find I’m again living like that.

Like what you might ask?

Like I know so well what I’m doing that I needn’t imagine any mistake being made and thus no reason to ever encounter even any hint of shame.

It’s a really weird experience, this life I’m living these days. For I find that I know plenty of shame as received from doing things to my past that my present is still paying for in what are ways that I already can’t seem to afford. And that because none of us, despite having a pride so apparently profitable that it can prove always that we’ve done nothing wrong, have the ability to actually afford the weight of realizing that we’ve only been lying all this time.

Much like those many idols we’ve chased here inside a world that’s chosen still to waste what is another new day in which we could all welcome a new change and do a new thing and go a new way.

Granted, the day is young and thanks to the fog I can’t quite tell if they sun’s up or not.

But let’s be real, what are the odds that we as whole managed to get our acts together and minds right overnight?

No, I’d say the best chance will here remain that most here will go on today doing the same things that they did yesterday. Simply because it’s both easier to live that way and it also helps greatly with that whole shame thing. For if you continue to do as you’ve always done then you’ll likely continue to feel as you’ve always felt thanks to continuing to find what you’ve already found. And so living still as if there is no sin, no Son, no need then of the salvation that He then didn’t bring and doesn’t offer, well, that just seems to say that we’re as good as we’ve long thought ourselves to be.

So good in fact that we walk perhaps even more brazenly than those like us did in the past.

What is brazen you may ask?

It’s something defined as being bold and without shame, even disrespectfully so. And so to be brazen means to put that act into action which is then defined as a way of life in which we walk with a willingness to face anything and everything with defiance or impudence. Impudence meaning, again, something done in disrespect or insolence. And though it sounds really close to silence, no, insolence is by far nothing close to silence as it’s rather quite reliant upon the same boldness and shamelessness of brazenness.

And indeed, this is something we can both see and hear every day around here. For still this world carries upon nearly every face that bold look of enjoying their every chosen disgrace. There was apparently a time in which those of ill-repute kind of kept their workings under wraps, mostly came out at night and things like that.

Not anymore.

No, these days we all but box it up and sell it in stores. And actually, come to think of it, I think we actually do exactly that. Just yesterday I had to run in walmart to grab a few things and saw again a cereal box emblazoned with the image of the main character of a tv show that’s I suppose is popular enough to warrant such a glory. Seems the story’s kind of gory from what I shamefully remember from having watched so many years ago. And indeed, from what I’ve heard, doesn’t sound as if it’s gotten any better since.

But most people must be so good with it that they even want to see it on their cereal in the morning.

And even apparently don’t mind their children getting all tangled up in this excitement over a day of the week, or at least that’s the name if you pick up what I’m literally putting down.

Which is what we should do because, well, that’s what we’ve been asked to. To have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but to rather expose them. But boy, you’ll get yourself in some hot water if you try that anymore! Yeah, for that’s one of the favorite hobbies of this cancer culture, that idea of cancel culture. Indeed, if you so dare to speak up or out against what this world loves, perhaps then hinting at the shame that some maybe should then have, yeah, it’ll probably go bad.

Because this world is content to remain the prostitute selling herself to whomever is still willing to buy whatever is left.

But that’s just it my friends, what is left? How much further can we actually go in this direction we’ve so clearly been going? What is it that we think we’ve still some chance of finding? That God isn’t there? That Scripture is void? That Christ didn’t come and thus salvation is off the table? I mean, sure, that all sounds all well and good as it would do well to prove that we’re, well, good. But do we really believe that we’re good? Do we truly believe that we’re living good lives?

Do we honestly think we haven’t done anything that deserves to see us die?

Looking at the world we’re in, no, you’ll really struggle to find any semblance of shame whatever, let alone that kind so heavy that it has finally led a person to humility. Rather we see constantly this continuing fall away from grace into just another day spent living like this place has chosen to live this life. So many change so little, and while that would be fine if we were living just right, fact is that we’re not. And in all honestly it’s not even a matter worth wasting our time to measure.

We’re not anywhere close!

And that’s because what’s done in this world is worlds away from the way God both created us to live and now calls us return to. We’ve gone so vastly astray that so many have just settled for continuing to assume that they’re so safe to keep living this way that they can enter their every remaining day without ever feeling anything in the way of shame.

And in all reality, we can.

We can all literally do whatever we want and likely learn to ignore every voice that’s trying to tell us that something is off. After all, that’s such an easy message to find that all you have to do is pick up your phone. Just scroll through social media for a few seconds and you’ll instantly start feeling either better about yourself or so bad about the current state of the world that you feel even worse yourself and then go off in search of other ways to just ignore the ways that everything is falling apart.

Indeed, there is nothing we can’t ignore if we try hard enough. And if you don’t believe me, just look around!

We’re in the middle of what’s arguably the most shameless society in all of human history. Just last night my family and I laughed as we watched a commercial for some new tv show as we have collectively no idea as to what’s on anymore. As I find myself seeming to say more and more often these days, if it ain’t black and white then chances are it ain’t alright. I’ll take reruns of Andy Griffith and The Beverly Hillbillies any day!

Why?

Because anymore everything else scares me to death. Because, well, that’s what so much of it seems to be interested in. These days everything we see is all about gore and death and blood and horror movies that leave me always ready for October to be over. The language we hear on tv and the all but pornographic scenes we see, it’s absolutely pathetic!

And yet people have learned to love it!

In fact, there’s no shame of it. There’s almost no shame at all. No, no matter what happens or how bad things get, it seems as though nothing can get through to us anymore. We’re all so numb and desensitized and indoctrinated that we can’t see that we literally do not care anymore.

But then again, how can we?

How can we start to pretend that we might start to care when we’re the ones who’ve sold ourselves? We made the choice! How can we then be the ones who pretend we didn’t know what we were doing or just how bad it might mean things could start going? And sure, maybe we didn’t know. But friends, again, look around!

Are we still unsure?

Or are we just so unashamed of what we’ve become that we truly don’t care as to what comes from it?

Look, I know that this world is not going to get any better. This much is so perfectly clear that you would honestly have to literally be blind to not see it, but even then if you had ears that could hear then you’d hear it getting worse thanks to the language we continue to use and how we’re all but throwing off those filters as well. My point is that the less shame we see and the less guilt we ourselves feel, it only leaves us thinking that what we’re doing is okay to do.

It isn’t.

Don’t we understand that that’s why bad things happen? I can’t count how many times we continue to hear people asking “why does God let bad things happen?” It’s to get our attention. It’s to help us see that life isn’t perfect thanks to what we’ve chosen to do to it. It’s to encourage us to return to Him who sends the rains or withholds them to bring the pain of drought and death.

Bad things happen to help us see that we are living life badly.

And yet we continue to do just that brazenly. Do you not see the problem?

Friends, our world is dying and we’re both holding the knife and somehow a smile as well.

It shouldn’t be this way. No, we should feel shame. We should know regret. We should welcome them both so that we can move on from what’s causing it. Problem is that our sinfulness is what’s causing it, and to that there seems no end. But friends, we’d better start looking for the end to our sin before He sends it our way. Because while we can clearly survive a life in which we sin and know no shame, there is no surviving the coming of Judgment Day.

Those without shame will do all they can to deny that fact. But the fact is that shame is sent to help us to turn unto a new way that will survive it. And that way is Jesus Christ. And while His way is narrow and does bring us to see our shameful ways, it’s only that way so as to save our souls.

Yes, we may lose our lives for living as if shame is real in what is a place that lives as if it’s not. But friends, it’s better lose what we can’t keep to keep what we can’t lose than to just lose both and, like most, pretend we’ve lost nothing.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold