Day 3897 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 1:28 NIV

Given up

And because of that I believe that we’ll all look up one day and see that it’s truly sad all the places in which we’ve asked God to meet us. For I think we’ve only come unto a gross willingness to take His willingness to do so for granted. Because He will meet us where we are just as that entirely common religious cliché says He will. But what I fear we’ve taken for granted is this expectation that He’s not going to meet us there with both choice and consequence.

Simply because we’re entirely fond of refusing the first in light of our now all but natural inclination as to the rejection of the second.

Indeed, we’re all now so adverse to both choice and change, because both bring cost and consequence, that we exist to basically refuse them both in what are hopes of our then avoiding our general understanding as to the overall heaviness of life. And it’s a very clear sight to see that in our further falling reality we all all but utterly despise any and all who call out the lies by which we live in lives we’ve lived as if but dead. Yes, we don’t want folks to point out what we’ve both preferred and pursued.

For we know well enough already that more than enough of our many such priorities have never been, well, well.

Rather I contend that we do understand the depth of our fall as seen, if for now nowhere else, in the faces and failures of those around. And while we could take that, as many do, as both an opportunity to bend down but only to pick up some stones to throw as well as a reminder that we’re not to do such a judgement seeing as how we ourselves cannot see all that well thanks to planks in place of specks, the general collapse does seem to ask that we at least start doing something so as to at least begin fighting unto the staving of whatever there happens to remain of us that’s even worth saving.

That is if there’s anything left of us at all.

And this is pretty much right where our fall meets our fear as, well, I don’t know that there’s much. And I say this as someone who has been studying God’s Word and writing these posts trying by best, which ain’t worth much, to translate His most hopeful of hope-fueled truth into the common vernacular of venom and violence in which we all speak anymore. For indeed, I’ve been trying to find Him and serve Him and honor Him and send some His way so that He can do for them the same as He’s done for me for what are a fair number of years now.

Yet still I find myself entirely too often lost in the wondering as to whether or not there’s anything left of me that’s worth anything all.

Because still I find myself doing things that, as Paul puts it here, are things that we ought not to do. Indeed, my life is still fraught with ought not. I’ve made an entire way of life that’s wrought with ought not. I’ve brought so much ought not into what’s been then a drought of my not doing what I ought not do that it’s at times been as if I’ve inclined into the line of what’s been a life spent fought against He who brought both to my attention my many fallen intentions and too the cross which demands a contention against my convention of playing always the victim to a life of ought not but will anyway.

I am literally sick to my stomach over some of the things that I knew I ought not have done but chose to do anyway.

And yet I still did them anyway!

Still do some even on those increasingly random days in which I strive harder than ever to not do what His Word says we ought not. And even though those days of my mistakes are indeed decreasing in frequency, frankly there’s no reason for them to be there at all. Not after how far my personal fall has found me fallen both in love with death and thus away from Him. No, there is absolutely no excuse for my to still work to lose so many opportunities to do the better I know in my heart I was made for.

And I do honestly believe that we all know in our hearts that we were created to be so much more than what we’ve become instead.

Problem is our head.

For such is where the depravity of mind has inspired us to cross every single line that we’ve lived this life to dance as if was never there at all. Such is the definition of the fall. It’s the general lack of care given as to where we should be, what that could mean, what has been allowed to mean more instead and why that decision is enough to deserve us dead. But yet, such is what we’ve given away. We’ve each all but completely stored away or sold away or thrown away so very much of the better that could have been us that something drastic was needed to draw one final line so as to separate those who could be saved from the many who refuse to be.

Issue then is that the line is a cross which brings with it a crossroads at which every human soul will indeed arrive at some time in life and there and then determine forever forward which group they’ll fall into.

For the final line that He’s drawn to separate those who could be saved from the many who will sadly refuse to be is defined in that junction between, say, Romans 6:10 and John 3:16. In Romans 6:10 we read that “the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” Helping us all to see that He did indeed die for all (once for all), but that so too does His death have something still to do with life as the life He now lives on the other side of our life as lived dead if lived to God. And what is it that His death desires to do with life?

To live it to God? And what then does that mean we’re to do with ours if we’re truly in Him?

Live them to God!

And we have that chance because of what that verse in John says, which brings with it the reason we should take it.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Indeed, Christ came to die unto the sin in which we’ve delighted to live in what’s long been a life lived in a blanket indifference unto His so doing, and yet He did so in order to achieve that promise which says that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life, as is found only when we too die unto doing as we ought not do and finally delight to do what God delights for us to as is then defined as a life lived to God.

This is the crossroads that the cross holds. It’s the line in the sand drawn by His hand that we’ll all come upon at some point, a point in which we’ll decide whether we live again or just continue to die.

Either way we’re all getting the latter outcome as a thank you for our having given up on all the better that we could have been at the inspiration of a head that’s long cared more to please self than Son.

Only difference then is the separating those few who do so choose to join Him in His death to sin and victory toward life from those who just decide that the depravity of mind we’ve each been given over to isn’t all that bad and thus not worth the risk of losing as compared to the widely agreed upon risk of life being lost in the work we know is done by a cross.

Indeed, we’ve even stopped crucifying people as we, well, apparently all agreed that the sheer torturous brutality was probably a bit much.

So I guess dumb dogs can learn some new tricks.

Question then is both why it takes us so long to realize we should and too why we even then so often choose not to even once we gather some pretty impressive reasons we should maybe try.

Reasons such as what we’ve seem to have to done to life. Reasons like the many things we all do that keep us and sleep apart at night. Reasons such as our being scumbags that have no mind when it comes to watching violence or porn but get really bothered whenever someone brings up the Bible. Reasons like how we can talk for hours sharing filthy jokes and worthless sports statistics but don’t really know how to hold the conversation over the invocation of the Holy Spirit as was oddly enough offered unto all and not just those who love some ball, foot or otherwise.

No, we have so many reasons to discontinue being whatever this is that we’ve become. But sadly chief among the descriptors of what we’ve become is, well, dumb. And yeah, that’s rude to say because sure, it hurts our feelings as, well, it really goes against our pride. And yeah, we are above all a prideful people who are mostly only assured that everything we’re doing is right, but that somehow always alongside this longstanding realization that things somehow aren’t going right.

Yes, each of us are perfect in the personally preferred ways in which we’ve chosen to live our lives, and yet when all of our personal perfections are combined we somehow manage to look nothing of perfection.

Wonder how that works.

Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t. And we can see that. We see it every day in fact. We are literally witnessing the last jerkings of what is a body that was meant for so much but chose instead to always remain so little that we’re indeed little left to be. And that simply because we have all collectively chosen the path of least resistance and thus now have in us no ability to resist much of anything.

Not strange how that works.

No, that part is entirely easy to understand. And that’s because it’s understood from where we’ve stood as what is a brood of vipers still wearing diapers all but willfully unable to stomach to the solid food that is the sure foundation of what is the Word of God. Indeed, we can’t take it. It hurts too much. Says mean stuff. It calls us all liars and failures and sinners and such.

We don’t need that.

Not because it’s not true but simply because it’s not nice to point it out. And that because chief of what we’ve become is a people so numb and indifferent unto the truth that we’re instead living proof of death before life. Indeed, we’re all dead men walking around as if we know what life is. We don’t. Haven’t any foggy idea. Why? Because all we have anymore are all these foggy ideas as to what else we could do with our time other than reading the Bible or saying a prayer or hoping that we have a prayer left of not being left behind when the line is found and we’re found unready to decide.

Unready because we lived thinking that we’d never have to.

Friends, we have to. In fact, get this, we’re deciding every single day if not multiple times within them all! Yeah, we’re all choosing between life and death, faith and fall all the time. Indeed, every word we speak casts a vote as to where we place our hope.

And so, what do you hear?

Well, sadly around here it sure ain’t much having much to do with life. Rather all we seem willing to talk about is a life in which we walk without any real desire to do that which God desires. Instead we just continue focusing on what we desire and continue to ignore every fire that the life of a liar somehow enjoys starting still.

Maybe we’re just practicing for where we know in our hearts we deserve to leave here going?

Either way, the reality is that we’ve chosen this. We’re the ones who denied God and still do more often than not. We’re the ones who’ve given up on trying to be more than we’ve become. We’re those who’ve lived a life in which we’ve chose to leave behind every opportunity that asked a bit too much or looked a little too rough. We’re the ones who leave Bibles dusty next to false gods rusty in what are tiny little rooms in which we cram all our hopes of a life not going up in smoke.

And yet all around us we can see the tell-tale signs of our not being right.

But rather than heed the warnings of the smoke that keeps blowing, instead we just keep on going the way we always have into a way of life that ain’t too bad. Yeah, we’re more than fine with not too bad. Could it be better? Yeah. Could it be worse? Yeah. Do we really have it in us to even pretend to care anymore? Nah.

And why?

Gave it away.

We have each of us given away so many chances to care about our directions that all we’ve learned, and now know, is to just keep giving away all of anything and everything that asks of us anything that we’re not elsewise ready to offer. Maybe later. Perhaps we’ll be ready by this time next year. Only, well, we may not have a next year. In fact, contrary to common assumption, we may not have another tomorrow.

But by all means, let’s keep putting off for later what will spell the difference between life and death and that forever.

No big deal.

Do you see my point?

It’s not only that we all do that which ought not be done, no, that part is entirely too easy to see and thus entirely not up for debate. No, the problem is that still we try. Still we try to debate that we’re doing things that we shouldn’t. Still we try to argue that we’re not doing the better things we should. Still we all live to some degree lost in the fall from which we exist in this call from the fog yelling that we can see just fine to get where we’re going.

But friends, where are we going? And is not what we’re seeing and hearing and otherwise already finding pretty good evidence of just how much further we shouldn’t want to go?

I mean, just look at some of the things that have become commonplace in just the last several years. We’ve got cancel culture, political incivility, an entertainment industry so obviously demonic that you’d have to be both blind and deaf to not know it, humanitarian crises all over the place, an increased willingness to kill those of a different perspective or list of priorities, a general hatred of pretty much everyone and a continued disinterest in the God who died to save us from it all.

But it’s not so bad. After all, the new iphone looks pretty nice with all the cameras and stuff.

Friends, don’t we get it yet? We’re living this life for fluff. We’re lost in a general lust for generic stuff. We’re bent so far from right that there’s not much left in terms of either time or hope. Because the truth is that the two of them are entirely too interconnected. For we’ve here only so much time in which to find all of that in which we hope. And thus our hope may well be gone when we hear that gong and our time’s all gone.

Is it really wise to continue giving up on so very much? Is it a good idea to keep asking God to meet us where we are with the intention of then asking Him to hang out with us for a while so that we can show Him how our way isn’t all that bad? Is it smart to so reject a fresh start? Especially considering how His clean slate brings with it the promise of empty graves?

Look, I know we’re all really gone in the head and that, as such, there’s not much more than but maybe one or two brain cells left that have somehow managed to survive all the drugs we’ve done and the more dumb we did and still do. But folks, it’s not hard to see the outcome of our doing as ought not be done. Every day we watch a world killing itself. But what’s bad is that we don’t even care about that anymore. Indeed, we walk right past so many people who may well leave this world today and yet the best we can so often offer is acting like they’re not here at all?

Or at worst some harsh words if not our trusty one-finger salute?

Come on man, we’re all meant for so much more than this! And yeah, I get it, more asks more. With more opportunity comes more responsibility. And sure, more responsibility likely means more mistakes considering the learning curve we’ve carved along the way to wherever we are. But honestly, what do we have to lose? I mean, if we’re literally living within the very best that our way can achieve, then I don’t see that we have much that we’re risking.

After all, are foul words, filthy jokes, dirty websites and all this now violent disagreement really bad things to lose?

Sadly we live in a world that lives as if they are. Many here live as if life itself wouldn’t be worth living if they couldn’t indulge in such depravities and their like. But that’s the decision that all of us have to make. And make no mistake, it’s one that we all have to make.

But in this case timing is everything because, again, time and hope run hand-in-hand. And so let’s stop living as if we’ve all the time in the world to have our fun and get our kicks before we come to our senses and seek the salvation we know we need from what we’ve done that we know well we shouldn’t have. Because while we may have all the time in the world, the world doesn’t have all that much time left. And so why risk leaving here only to find that God really did meet us where we were?

Only to then realize that He also agreed to leave us where we’d placed our every hope?

No, store up that treasure in Heaven and learn to see our common way of living life here as the trash we’ve allowed it to become. Because while that may be hard and hurt pretty bad, at least that pain is a sign that we’re still alive.

And the lack of it seen inside the common lack of shame is then reason enough to start seeing just how dead society already is thanks to all of us having already given up and so many still asking, demanding that God do the same.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold