Day 3918 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 4:22 NIV

Corrupting

It’s to endure the experiencing of something that is otherwise obviously intent upon the shifting, sifting, sinking or shaking of that which it seeks to influence or interact with. It’s an undoing in an undue changing as is to be proven, perhaps only eventually, unto a degree that is at best detrimental if not at worst utterly damaging. It’s the enduring of the processes of a pre-determined outcome that has no regard toward this outcome as is to be found or felt by that which is acted upon.

In other words, that which corrupts is that which kills.

Now granted, it may not involve the actual physical death/demise of that life or way thereof. In fact, corruption rarely brings with it any outward expression of the damage being done inwardly. At least at first. Rather it seeks to sully the inside of a vessel, breaking down from within the very thoughts, attitudes and intents of that which it has chosen to change in what is to be proven a very antithetical way. Antithetical because it acts in gross opposition unto the host upon which it sets its intentions.

Slowly breaking down from the inside out through means that the host itself may have little if any idea are happening.

Such is a life corrupting.

And indeed, it’s by all means and in a great many ways the way of life we’ve all known here inside what is a world corrupted. And we know this world is corrupted because we’re now literally walking through the fallout and daily speaking with or elsewise interacting amongst those who themselves are likely living as but either mostly unwitting victims of this world’s falling conditions or willing participants in the furthered collapse of what once had the literal makings of a great culture in a vastly beautiful place.

Alas, it’s been now a long time since the Garden was known as instead we’ve grown to plant our own hopes in what are the seeds of things seen, a sowing then of sin as it was never His intent for us to live this way of life in which we daily take it upon ourselves to make it up as we go. No, rather it was God’s intention that we live in communion with He who is the Bread of Life and Living Water, a fact proven forever in the many ways in which He’s always managed to provide both the above.

For in everything from that manna in the desert to the water pouring from rocks along the way, God has indeed made a way for us to remain what is alive in thus a life that we were meant to live for something more than our worrying always about what we have and how it ain’t enough to measure up the more we’ve learned always to want.

Indeed, such is the corruption that begat the first sin of what’s now a still falling man. It all began back in that Garden called Eden when Adam and Eve were deceived into taking from the one tree that all of us would have been far better off if they’d have done as God had asked and simply left it alone. But no, now we’re all instead born aware of the difference between good and evil and too the distance we’ve come to travel from the former in search of our share of a world that don’t care about either.

No, this place proves each day that the majority of folks here have no worries in regard to such promises as the presence of wickedness or woe. We know no woe, at least apparently not enough to inspire in us the proverbial whoa in which we seek to stop our stumbling and seek for some way to sure our slipping footing as found in what is ground so shifting that none should be doing quite so much building as we see so many continuing.

And that simply because the shakiness of sand cannot prove able to withstand the pressures placed upon it as it will simply drift out from underneath whatever it is that is crudely placed upon it. For sand is largely liquid in form as proven in how it flows, much like water, when held in the hand. It just pours out should the hand turn to either side, proving that it has little if any structural integrity of its own upon which to rely.

How much less then anything which relies on it for its foundation?

But yet, sand and sin and similar in ways beyond sound. They both exist in what is a largely liquid state in which they remain impressively able to flow in any direction that some pressure may inspire them to go. That’s why sand is so hard to walk on. It’s because all the force that you use to propel yourself forward is instead dissipated throughout the various grains causing the simple act of walking to induce far more strain than when it’s done upon a solid surface.

And much the same, sin is a strain upon the body and soul as it seeks to go where life cannot grow and thus gives every ounce of interest and intention unto things, thoughts, theories that instead act to dissipate said efforts throughout what grows to be an innumerable number of deceptions and/or distractions each aimed only at stealing our focus, killing our purpose and destroying our share of His promise that has already proven the existence of life after death.

A promise so few look to because they’ve become so corrupted by the many lies of sin that they live only giving in to their being further corrupted by the cancer it causes.

Yes, sin is a cancer and, as with all of the others, there is no cure known among man.

Thankfully we have the Word spoken of John in which we read, in regard to part of the verse we discussed just yesterday, that “to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

Simply because, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” And thus “we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” A truth which “sets captives free.”

Free from what you might ask?

From the corruption of sin that’s caused each and every one of us to do so much so wrong that we’ve indeed forgotten who we are.

That’s the part of the verse I mentioned from yesterday’s discussion. It’s that part in which we see His Word speak of our becoming a new unleavened batch of bread baked to partake of the Passover Lamb who has, on our behalf and to our benefit, now been sacrificed. A sacrifice demanded of God so as to do away with the sinfulness of all fallen flesh whereby room is there made for new hearts to be given unto those seldom few who, in humility, see the necessity of their sharing in His sacrificing of what is a clearly corrupted way of life.

Problem remains that whole ‘seldom few’ part.

Because when something is so scarce as those who truly embrace the fullness of the Gospel and set their hearts upon receiving as much of the salvific truth spoken and shown within it but see and hear rather the larger majority who continue to live as if none of it happened, we thus remain more prone to continue in our corrupting ways simply because, as a people already adverse to change, seeing the majority of those around us refuse it themselves will only give us ample reason to imagine we should as well.

Simply because the corrupted way of life spoken of here in our verse for today is that spent walking in the steps that sinners take and sitting in the company of mockers and yoking ourselves to the many unbelievers who seem to be growing only more blatant in their many denials of He who is our only chance at life after death. We have each lived thinking that life’s best is to merely fall in line behind who we can only hope, but honestly should know otherwise by now, are not blind and thus able to see well enough to lead all of us unto that place that we all seem to want to be.

For it seems that all of humanity still seeks for the very same things. We all want things such as peace, happiness, hope, love, security, safety, the general substances of a decent life.

Problem is that our society has become in fact so corrupted by sin that we all now seek those things in so many different places that are almost entirely not the One place they’re all found in such perfect measure that they’re in Him promised to last forever.

Rather we continue sifting through the sand through which we’re all still straining to walk behind those who’ve trained us to talk like they do so that we can exist in what is a life in which we’re even down to using our words for such emptiness as mutual affirmation.

Yes, we’re so far gone that we’ve become incredibly willing to speak only that which pleases itching ears within the express expectation that our own be soothed as well.

And well, thus the corruption continues and will do so until something again entirely drastic happens.

Problem then becomes that God’s proven Himself to be very disinterested in doing the same things a second time. Such is actually the real purpose of the rainbow. It’s God’s sign given to man that never again will He use water to wipe clean His creation of the corruption and chaos we’ve chosen to continue creating within it.

Which oddly enough gives us a rather perfect example of just how far gone we really are in that there are those of a self-proclaimed prideful variety who have sought to usurp said sign and use it to show mankind that they’re something of gods themselves in which they determine for themselves that which is right from amongst a great and now growing number of things which He said are not.

Indeed, it almost seems as if mankind is in something of a race to see just how many abominations we can cram into what remains a life that we’re all going to answer for someday.

Not big thinkers it would seem!

Because His tendency to not repeat past actions will one day find that Christ has come not to save or forgive but to judge and thus likely condemn.

And well, that’s part of the reason that He here asks that we do away with/put off the old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. And indeed, I find the wording of this verse very interesting as it seems very particularly stated that the old self IS BEING corrupted. This is interesting because old and is rarely go together as that which is old is already done, finished, over. And yet this verse reads that the old is being corrupted still.

Almost as if to say that there’s some part of this that will always be underway. Kind of perhaps pointing to the fact that salvation truly is a gift which awaits at what is the end of a lifelong process called sanctification in which we grow daily deeper into a then widening understanding of the vast discrepancies between God’s way which is not corrupted and our ways which so clearly are. A fact that only grows in said clarity as we grow in Christ.

And that in a world that won’t.

Which is the entire point, purpose, promise and plan of the Passover Lamb.

For in 2 Corinthians we read that “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” And in Galatians that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Two very similar messages which hinge upon our existence being tied to Christ in such a way that we grow to realize that to live is Christ and to die thus gain.

Which is where today’s verse seems to join the conversation quite wonderfully.

And that’s because today’s verse speaks to the doing away with the old which is always to be known for its ability to continue being corrupted, a continuation guaranteed should we backslide into our old ways (proving then the verse which talks about an evil spirit returning to its former home to find it cleaned and orderly only to go find some wicked friends and come to back to destroy it all over again, leaving then the state of the soul so invaded in worse shape than it was before).

Which is why He warns against the lukewarmth that would open us to the considering of our going in either of what are two directions: Growing in the good or simply returning to the bad.

And yes, one of those will always prove easier if thus not vastly more comfortable.

Because yes, it will always be easy and largely comforting to turn back to what we know and thus skip all of the pains and humblings that come with every manner of growing and growth.

Problem is that we don’t have a choice. I mean, technically we do as there is the existence of free will, but we don’t because just because we have the right or freedom to do something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do with said freedom. And that’s because there is always a way that seems right to man but in the end leads only to death.

Something we all know far more of than our fear of would contend.

No, we all know plenty of death, it’s just that it’s long been the death of the many better things we could have been but have rather never known due to the deceitful corruption we’ve embraced that has enjoyed turning us ever away from the better we thus now cannot be.

At least not on our own.

Rather now we need so much help that it would seem that most have determined to go the path of contending that they need none at all. A really interesting theory that will surely make for some quite dramatic finishes to be found before too long.

Finishes we’ve been forewarned against partaking of ourselves in light of the promises that await any who so refuse to choose to lose what is a corrupted way of life for what is one that is eternally assured thanks to Christ having came to die to that which is corrupted and still corrupting. It will not end well for those who spend out the rest of their days doing only those sinful things that this world desires for us to never turn from.

Proving then how friendship with the wrong company corrupts good character and why friendship with the world is thus enmity against God.

It’s because it’s all corrupt.

I am honestly growing more deeply convinced, and that by the day, that just about everything here is a lie. It’s all deception or deceit. It’s all gluttony and greed. It’s plays of power and pretend that humans can both have it, which we can’t, and wield it well, which we wouldn’t even if we could. It’s indeed a way of life in which each of us exist only to seek for our own delights in whatever decay or disarray that we might elsewise come to assume may do so little as make us feel good for a moment or two.

We’re indeed so far gone into this general corruption of all creation that we think life is meant for nothing more than pleasure and satisfaction.

Both of which cause us to discount His call unto sacrificing what would then be a flesh that willingly gave up that which it once enjoyed in exchange for what His time here clearly proves is likely little in the way of comfortable or successful.

At least in our estimations of such things.

Which is why the message of the cross remains foolishness to those who are perishing, and we who adhere to it, carrying our own versions thereof, are deemed fools unto those living as if wisdom itself is something of a human creation. Proving once again that we are impressively corrupted!

Friends, my point is that all of this points to the simple fact that we’re really bad at living life. We’re in fact all so bad at living life that every single one of us is promised to die! Why then continue to live the way of life that has brought about such a woeful guarantee? Why not rather do as Jesus did for you and me and lay down that which is destined to perish in exchange for the promise that we have a place in which nothing of this place is to be seen, felt, heard, known or even remembered?

Indeed, I believe that Heaven will be so amazing that we’ll likely just end up forgetting all of this world and the fallen lives we’ve lived within it. And while I can’t know that for sure, and I sure hope we can remember some things as there have been a few things that I’ve been blessed to have seen, felt, experienced, I also trust more in the will of God than I do my own.

And that because I’ve long lived as if I knew best only to wake up all the time unto what are more days in which I do things I shouldn’t and find thus only the evidence of still some of my old self still hanging on and threatening me with the continued corruption that he’s always known.

I want not to experience any more of my inabilities to be the better that I can still somehow believe is still somehow possible for me. And thus I find that I have to welcome His help in the laying down of not just a life, but, again as the wording of this verse makes incredibly interesting the point, an entire way of living one. Yes, we have to rid ourselves of the way we’ve lived our lives, even up to ridding ourselves of life itself.

Thankfully He knows how to give new life to those who seek for it.

Unfortunately He simply cannot give anything new to anyone who won’t let go of the old.

For we’ve simply not enough time nor space to live two lives. And so we have to choose: Keep that which is corrupted and continue hoping for the best or lay down that which we know isn’t best and walk forward unto what He died to prove hope really is.

Seems a simple enough choice, you know, considering the chaos of the corruption we all know so well already.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold