Day 3908 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 5:11 NIV

Intolerant

It’s a mindset defined as one which finds someone at least sometimes “refusing to accept particular ideas, beliefs, behaviors, especially because they are different from your own, or refusing to accept people who are different from you.” And while this actually has quite a rational if not reasonable if not in fact responsible undertone as it allows us to act in such a way that at the very least allows us to go slow into our being found in potential agreement, a patience that offers us the opportunity to ensure that that with which we agree is indeed something that is commendable for us to be found in agreeance with, the problem is that last part.

Because anymore everyone takes everything so stinking personal that it’s like you can’t sneeze without somebody being offended.

And indeed, our “refusal to accept particular ideas, beliefs or behaviors” often because they are in fact quite scarily different from our own as they’re held or acted upon by those who are in fact always to be at least measurably different from us is now what finds us being classified by all sorts of labels and groupings that are clearly aimed at tearing down such defenses as should be stood against so very much of what is going on in this world of deepening darkness.

The issue is that those who exist in the dark despise those chasing He who is the Light of everything from love to life as they exemplify the overall failure to uphold such an opportunity as is being settled upon by the vast and growing majority who live in what is an already blanket but too growing denial of His very existence. I mean we’re as a people so far gone these days that we never even get to the point in which we debate the merits or mercies of all that Christ did and promises.

No, we just watch as the world grows colder as they continue to carry this chip on their shoulder that they almost seem to ache to keep there as if it gives them some sort of life-sustaining sustenance within what is a life of such substance as hatred, argumentation, division, violence and even murder. All of which are so clearly so common anymore that we’ve all become all but desensitized to them.

And that’s one of the things that we’re apparently just supposed to tolerate.

In fact, it’s almost not even a tolerance issue as tolerance carries with it a hint of endurance as in the enduring of something that could at least in theory be elsewise avoided. But rather to tolerate something is defined as an action in which one “accepts behavior and beliefs that are different from your own, even though you might not agree with or approve of them.” In other words, to tolerate is to put up with something that is at the very least potentially if not at worst blatantly trying, painful, rude or unbecoming that which you are seeking for you or your life or your hope to become.

And so what we’re seeing unfold in the world around us is both a growth in things which clearly shouldn’t be said or done or thought or seen but also a simultaneous growth in our apparent duty to just go along with it all. To just accept it. To at the very least just keep our mouths shut and never say anything that could even potentially be taken as derogatory by those partaking of such behaviors or even preferably get in line and cheer them on as they do that which we may not even understand enough to actually be found agreeing with.

I can’t count how many videos I’ve seen of people, mostly younger folks, who are attending all of these protests and parades that are springing up all but every day anymore who, when asked why they’re there, legitimately say that they have no idea. They just go because either people they know asked them to or they just saw this gathering and thought to jump in feet-first and see where it led and what happened along the way.

So many here have so adopted this herd mentality that I honestly don’t think people think about it anymore. I don’t think many even notice it. For again, it’s become normal. It’s common. It’s the standard operating procedure of what’s become a place operating so far out of God’s intended design for His creation that we honestly shouldn’t be still so surprised when someone dares stop and hold up their hand and ask why.

And yet we are.

We are so taken aback by any and all who ever dare to so stand up and call any attention at all to anything that anyone is doing. It’s such a rare occurrence that we honestly don’t know what to do with it. Just to give you a quick example, just the other day I saw a clip from a public speech made on I believe a college campus somewhere in which the speaker, an apparent man of faith, had the audacity to say that he thinks that gay marriage should be again made illegal.

I couldn’t believe it!

That someone would have the gall to say such a thing in this modern day and age in which we’re even to the point in which being gay is kind of old school when compared to all the other iterations of what the Bible says is abomination as they all exist so well outside of, again, God’s intended design that I’m amazed this stuff has actually come from a human mind.

But to hear someone say something like that in a world in which we’re at the point where it’s pretty much beyond taboo to talk about such things as gay marriage, it blew my mind.

Why?

Because I agree!

And yet I found myself so terrified to be agreeing with him because I too have apparently bought into this idea that we’re supposed to just live and let live. Indeed, I am horrified of how many such clichés and idioms I’ve fallen for believing are at least potentially the best path forward. What other lies have I agreed with? What other sins have I turned basically a blind eye toward? What other abominations have I been living all but saying are perfectly okay?

Not that I actually agree with any of them, but simply because we all have this innate instinct toward basic self-preservation that all but demands we do all that we can to save ourselves from as much torment and turmoil as possible. That’s why most of us don’t make a hobby out of running through traffic at rush hour or smoking a carton of cigarettes every day. We just seem to have this basic understanding that some things are simply dangerous and thus best to be always avoided.

And well, I hate to say it but the now general, if not generic, wrath of man seems to be climbing that list of things we seek to avoid. In fact, it might be by now at the very top. Why? Because we’ve become a culture of such disdain and danger that we all just sort of exist in our own little corner in which we can hide away from the public’s hate and just try to enjoy the approach to life that we ourselves think is right with hopefully as few people knowing who we really are and what we truly believe as possible.

All to limit the overall exposure of both the truth, which we are all made daily aware is not at all welcome around here, and thus us to the hatred and venom spewed by those who so hate the truth that they still live as if Christ isn’t worth knowing simply because He rounded no corners in the words He spoke.

Yes, many here will continue to deny Jesus, not because His promises aren’t amazing, but simply because He called out sins whenever He saw them and even had the audacity to at times ask folks to “go and sin no more.”

What a jerk, am I right?

It’s like that guy I mentioned above who said that he thought gay marriage should be illegal. Who says stuff like that which hints at the moral illegitimacy of something that someone else is doing? We don’t call things out like that anymore. In fact, I don’t know that any of us ever really did! Rather we’ve always been, again, of that baser herd mentality that’s found us always quite willing to just do our best to blend in and fly under the radar as we know that the nail that sticks out is the one that gets hammered.

And so we keep such opinions and outlooks to ourselves. We agree with the world that continues to ask that we just shut up, keep quiet and never rock the boat. Why? Because we don’t want to drown in the death that is denial or defamation or the utter disaster that it would be for us to be considered any of the amazing names that folks are called these days.

Because nobody wants to bear the burden of being a bigot or a racist or a homophobic heathen who’s apparently so behind the times that they would still rather agree with God than with man.

Again, who does that?

Well, the sad reality is that we don’t. At least not on the large scale, at least not anymore. No, rather we’ve all been quietly and slowly coaxed into our just going along to keep getting along with those who have a seemingly more ready ability to bring us harm in the form of hatred or exclusion or, again, even being labeled with some linguistic scarlet letter that, when bestowed, all but utterly upends potentially your entire life.

It’s like the story of that bakery in I believe it was Colorado that refused to make a cake for, ironically, a gay wedding. Those folks were called everything under the sun and their business suffered just because they decided to stand up for what they themselves believed. They were hated and held to the flames by so many all because they held to a different understanding of tolerance than even that of what is a world that talks all the time about how loving and accepting of everything and everyone that we’ve become.

Yes, they’ll love you when you do as they do and say what they say and agree with them on everything. But stand against something they support and all of the sudden their tolerance runs out somehow.

Weird how that works.

For we live in a world that is tolerant of everything and expects everyone to thus agree and tolerate everything too. And yet just as soon as you don’t, well then suddenly they won’t tolerate you. Something of a measure of hypocrisy there, but even that’s something that’s likely considered too judgmental to be tolerated in a world that will not put up with such blatant stances taken against the enjoyments of those so stinking delusional that they have no idea what they even stand for.

Again, they likely just go along because all their friends are or just see the crowds forming and find themselves filled with wonder and excitement to again feel like they’re a part of something.

Yes, people all just want to feel like they’re a part of something, like they belong here somehow, that they’re seen and loved and accepted for who they are. But friends, that’s kind of the logical question: How can we even know who we are when all but our every thought, opinion, word and action is given us by those around us who all but demand we agree with them or suffer the clearly defined consequences of failing to do so?

How can we know who we are if we don’t stand for anything?

Because if all we stand for is only that which someone else tells us we should agree with, then we’re nothing more than reflections of them. And I just don’t see how that’s neither anything close to who we were created to be seeing as how we’re all different people living different lives with thus different abilities and opportunities to put them to good work and nor is it then ever going to prove able of helping us to reach the fullness of the potential God gave us to actually be who He created us to be.

Rather it just finds us embracing the melting into what’s become a melting pot that’s boiled over and all but caught on fire.

Question then becomes just how much longer will we endure the burning and ignore the smell of smoke before we start asking why we’re supposed to be good with how things are going down here?

Why are we so tolerant of so many of the things that people are doing? Is it because we actually agree with them or just because we’re afraid of them? Do we truly support the things we’re being asked to support or are we just trying to do whatever we can to prevent the storm from blowing in? Yes, do we really wish to endure all the wickedness and wrong being done anymore or are we just terrified of actually calling it for what it is because we know that most do seem to like living like this?

My point is that we’ve been adopted into a purposeless way of life thanks to our having adopted into our mind what was already a fairly common fear of man that has in recent years swelled into an all-out agreement with the fallout simply sought because we know the flame of human hate burns really hot in just about everyone anymore.

Indeed, we are all becoming so weak that we even find ourselves either shocked by the things that we agree with or not shocked by the things we go along with.

For again, I agree that gay marriage should be illegal because the Bible says that it’s not a thing as marriage is therein defined as a union between a woman and a man and too that anything outside of those created guidelines is an abomination. But sadly I’ve also been long found in agreement to stay quiet about such things out of a worry that talking about them and my true beliefs about them would likely cost me something.

These days perhaps even up to my life.

Which is itself something I say inside such a sense of shame that I can’t stand it. So why do I? Why do I tolerate the ways of this world causing me to feel like a failure in regard to speaking the truth and standing boldly upon the Rock? Why do I avoid talking about certain topics around certain people? Why do I still endure that age-old process of saying what I’m pretty sure someone else wants to hear? Why do I seldom say what I know someone else needs to hear? Why don’t I talk about Jesus more? Why don’t I share the Gospel more often?

Why am I so afraid of losing something that I instead seem to be a person who still tolerates wickedness all so that I don’t have to be the one to stand against it?

And why are we all the same way?

Is it not because we’ve become more afraid of man than we ever were of God? And is that not simply because we can see and hear the hate and wrath swung wide those who are physically in front of us? And is that not because we all resort to that self-preservation mode in which we seek to stay out of harm’s way as best we can? And is that not because we all still believe that we’ve something here to lose? And is that not only because we also think we’ve gained something here that we can keep and likely still hold to that hope of here gaining even more?

And is that not because the world seems almost limitless in regard to that which they can give or take away depending upon how good we are in terms of our going along and doing as we’re told?

Indeed, why don’t we do as we’re told? And no, not by the world as in the end we’ll find that the world has no say in where our eternity stays. No, why don’t we do as we’re told within the Word which was breathed by God for our benefit of having that promise of that hopeful eternity in which not even death is allowed to be remembered?

Is it not because the Bible calls us to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but we’ve instead become petrified of exposing both them and our beliefs about them because we know our beliefs won’t be well received by those who enjoy them?

Friends, the point is that we’ve been afraid of people far too long and it’s caused us to be found in agreement with so many things that God has directly called us to have no such acceptance of. And make no mistake, agreeing with something is the same as accepting it, approving it, saying that it’s entirely okay and perfectly harmless.

But folks, there’s nothing harmless about that promise of that place that isn’t Heaven.

So why then do we sit on the sidelines with the truth locked inside hearts that are afraid to speak it in light of our knowing quite well how most here feel about it? And even more, why do we continue to put more concern on what people think than we do on what God has set in stone?

Look, I know that it’s normal anymore to seek the path of least resistance as it’s the one that will always afford us the least potential for harm or hardship. But if that path of least resistance finds us all but basically resisting God’s call for us, then we’re going to find harm and hardship anyway. Only His are the kind that we can’t survive.

Thankfully Christ has shown us that we can survive the hatred and rejection of this world that He’s too shown will come whenever we follow His example and live sharing the message of the Gospel.

Problem is that His example has nothing to do with tolerating sin as the Gospel is the message that tells us that He both came to save us from such darkness and that He’s coming back to judge all of us and remove from His presence those many who’ve not chosen to heed the warning.

So indeed, let us be careful that we are not condemned because of that which we approve.

For we’re to have as much agreement with sin and the Son has. And seeing as how sin is what cost Him His life, yeah, I’d say that He’s not a big fan.

You could probably even say that of it He’s pretty much intolerant.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold