Day 3986 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 6:10 NIV

From and for

Or, perhaps more poignant to this post and point, to and toward. And that simply because of everything that’s ever been done in the history of our ability to do things, all things we’ve all done have been done only because those doing them believed then that they were able to accomplish something worthy of the work, wait or worry involved and entailed in their doing of whatever it was that they determined to do. For none of us will do anything if there’s not a valid reason as to why it needs to be done.

How much less then shall the Son and what He’s done not accomplish that for which He did it which was and remains to erase the sin and shame that has kept us all standing in the rain of a life lived entirely plain upon this plane of pain caught in the pride that ties to what was a life that all have lived that is nothing like the life that we were created to live nor, now that He’s done what He did, have the chance to live again?

Indeed, will not He who conquered death succeed at giving life unto those however many agree to share in both? Is that not the general foundational principle of the Gospel itself?

That those who were/are dead in sin are thus separated from the God of perfect righteousness, and thus, as such, too excluded from the life that He promises unto only those who uphold His will as opposed to their own? And does this not now stand, as it always has, as a problem entirely too perfect for even our very best efforts to solve, or honestly even understand?

Truly, how can those who do as they shouldn’t, again thinking they should as, again, none do anything without thinking they’ve a reason or right to race toward the reward they assume in the so doing of whatever they’ve determined to do, so then, how can those who’ve determined to do wrong be the ones to overcome that tendency toward so vastly under-thinking the gravity of their own actions?

For if sin has become such a light matter that they seem to matter not their ongoing dabbling therein, thereof, therefor, theretoward, then how can they be then the same who then turn from what has become something that they’re otherwise not only unafraid of but in fact all but seemingly friends with?

Yes, how can anyone who’s spent so much time building such resolved relationships in life be the same as those who seek, as if all of the sudden and thus quite out of nowhere, to be those who seek rather to see them implode?

It makes no sense.

And yet, is this not why so many still live that kind of life in which they apparently know only to deny He who came to do what He desired to, which is die, and that for sins, not His own, but rather for those of those who were His but had forgotten this? Indeed, is it not that we’ve forgotten who we are that we are still so intrigued by the doing of things that ought not be done? Is our sinfulness not evidence of His Word which reads that He will give us over to the desires of our hearts?

Having been so given over to hearts so obviously depraved, is there not then something of a hope of our being saved to be seen inside how the very same Word breathed by the very same God, who does not change mind you, states also that if we seek Him with all our hearts that we shall find Him as, again, He will give us that which our hearts desire?

Is it not then the desire of the heart that determines the direction we go, as is gone in doing the things we’ll be asked to do in order to keep going considering there is no such thing as an effortless life?

Indeed, does not every direction in which we delight to go, as is delighted in due to the dreams for hope and things believed to be waiting in that way, do not these decisions come with the express understanding that we’ll have to do something along the way in order to continue growing toward the hope for which we’re going?

For again, nobody sets out to do anything, go anywhere without some firmly established reason to do so.

Takes too much work. Invites too much risk. Asks too much change, effort, movement, all of which are things that the well-trod path of least resistance doesn’t so demand. And in truth, is this not exactly why the same path is well-travelled? Because it is so easy and wide? Because it asks nothing? Because it seems to risk nothing? Because we think that our giving something, life in this case, so much nothing can somehow accomplish something that ensures we arrive at something worth hoping for?

Friends, what is there to hope for in all that we’re otherwise unwilling to look for, fight toward, suffer for, die toward?

Honestly, what of anything can anything mean when we do everything only when forced, and that then grumbling every step of the way? Does our deepening degree of disagreement truly send the message that we’re happy about what we’re doing, excited about where we’re going, eager to become whoever it is that we’re becoming?

Do we not realize or understand that everything we do, even doing nothing, determines the very basis of who we can then hope to become?

Does doing nothing, changing nothing, risking nothing, surrendering nothing truly then seem or sound the best way to find something, be something, grow somehow?

Is that not basically what seems an entirely elementary understanding of the cross itself?

Did Christ not take that hill so as to help us see that not only do we need help but that we can, even if in some minute if not utterly microscopic way, help ourselves? Now no, that’s certainly not to say that we can save ourselves as, well, if we could then Christ died for nothing and our faith means then the same.

And, well, I refuse to believe either as neither makes any sense whatsoever.

Because in fact He did die as has been now testified by many eyewitnesses who, despite promises of serious penalty, up to and including death, promises which were acted up and indeed fulfilled, never once changed their testimony.

Who does that?

Certainly not us as rather we’re people of such mettle that we’re even today to the point in which we’re all but rewriting language itself because of the messages we sell within the words we say and how they’re all anymore at the ongoing, if not in fact now growing risk of being deemed offensive and thus us hateful for saying them.

Indeed, we are of the seed that seems to see that words do hurt and, as such, can be used against us in the court of public opinion which still, as then, has no issues in their acting upon their promises to all but eventually render those deemed offensive, hateful, rude or elsewise unloving in regard to the ways in which this world all but anymore demands to be loved, are not worth living life anymore.

That is in fact who we’ve become as a society. Which, sadly, means then that this that we see with our own eyes unfolding all the time, this is what our hearts have desired to do, to be, to have in fact so become as we have.

And yet we still have so many who claim they can’t see any legitimacy to the Gospel of Christ simply because it offends us by pointing out the obvious? Friends, we are so clearly all sinners that it’s actually kind of amazing that He still finds in us anything worth saving! And why is that? It’s not, as some contend, that He’s not loving. It’s rather simply a return upon our own wager. For indeed, the measure we’ve used has in fact been used as the measure measured unto us!

How about that for turning the tables!

It’s that, again, nobody does anything without there being some all but absolutely certain reason to do it. And so, in light of that, why would God continue to love us as is proven in His patience, His mercy, His offering still of this gift of forgiveness if we remain so dead-set upon never loving Him in return? That’s what really makes no sense. It’s not that Christ would die to atone for the lost way of life lived by those who’ve sinned and fallen then short of the glory of God.

No, that actually is just about all that seems to make any sense anymore seeing as, well, again we have all in fact sinned so much, so often that it’s basically nothing more than our very existence.

And so it makes no sense for us to even believe in the ability, the opportunity that is presented in this most hopeful of thought that there is a God out there somewhere who came and walked among us so as to lead us from where we’ve been, who we’ve become, toward the better that He still apparently knows we can, and some will, eventually be.

But again, why would He do that if He knew, and He knows everything, if He knew that all we’d continue to do is nothing short of hate Him?

And indeed, it’s clear that most here hate Him as most here deny Him in what seem new ways and deeper depths every single day. It’s amazing how much, how often we ignore Him. Truly amazing! Why? Because here we have the God of Heaven, the very Creator of life itself, the same He who died to save all of us who, if we were to be honest, haven’t exactly gotten all of life all that right, not only offering to forgive us for our having gotten so much so wrong, but literally gave Himself over to the death of the cross in order to prove it.

And yet we still deny Him.

We ignore Him.

We refuse Him as instead we tune in to everything from songs singing about who knows what, shows showing basically the same, books written about some of the most worthless stories ever conceived by man, and thus a heart that apparently continues to obviously desire all of this that we’re doing instead of simply following Him and seeking to know Him more and help more know of Him too.

Because we’ve become convinced that doing something so weird, strange, silly, foolish in fact is then something that makes no sense for anyone to do.

Because, again, we won’t do anything if we haven’t a valid excuse to do it.

And, well, when the entire world tells us that something is foolish, sadly our having each become so reliant upon the same means then that we’ll just believe it.

No questions asked.

But friends, so too then no hope had!

Why?

Because this world is so obviously without hope that people are to the point of literally trying to manufacture it inside of things made of wood and plastic. As if that which we use to heat our houses and hold our liquids can prove too of the ability to give our lives meaning!

Yeah, at this point we’re not only reeling in our seeking for something to make our lives seem as if they mean something too, we’re careening over the edge into utter insanity.

And, well, we’ll all eventually find that there’s nothing there to find that’s worth finding. Because insanity is a life spent running in circles doing never anything new and, though always then never finding anything to be any different, never doing anything about that either.

All chosen because again we’ll not do anything without a reason.

Thing is that Jesus wouldn’t either.

And so then, what was His reason for doing what He did, as was, again, testified to by eyewitnesses who literally welcomed death rather than the ability to escape it by changing their stories?

Well, it must then be something worth dying for!

And, well, in fact it is! Because freedom is worth dying for. Hope is worth dying for. Hope is what makes life worth living for. And that faith combines the hope of freedom and life, both found for all of forever, then yeah, faith is worth dying for!

Why?

Because life is worth dying for!

And indeed, that is what Jesus died for. He died, as we read right here, to put an end to sin once and for all. As in He did it once, as that’s all that was needed as doing it again would be redundant and thus seem to say that the first was somehow insufficient, and for all as in for all of us who have sinned and were thus then faced with death because that is what all sin earns as its wage. He died, not because He deserve to but rather because we deserved to.

He died that we might have life, and that life to the full.

Which, according to what we talked about just yesterday or the day before (not sure as they blend together pretty badly anymore), seems to say that what we’d been living, perhaps still are, isn’t a full life after all.

Full of sin maybe.

Full of death if that’s the case.

Does that sound like a life worth living?

A life filled with death?

Is that not rather why it’s said that He came to empty Himself out, having put on the sinful flesh of a fallen man, so as to then be emptied of sin, done with sin, overcoming then the death that all sin wins?

Why then do we still struggle so mightily in regard to whether or not to welcome Him into our lives?

If not only because He asks that we die too?

But friends, as I know we talked about yesterday (I usually remember the most recent post’s point), don’t we yet see the necessity of such a shifting of direction? For the fact has now been proven in His dying to our sins that, having thus been living in sin, we’ve been living toward death. And again, is that something that sounds like a good idea? Is living in sin, toward death, really the best way to find life?

What hope is there to have in our dying in sin?

Granted, we likely don’t see all that much sin in our lives as one of our greatest tries is to try and make it seem like we’re not that wicked or wrong. But, well, what if we are? I mean I’ve personally gotten quite a lot of things wrong in the past, and so, well what if I’m wrong about that? And sure, someone could make the case that maybe I’m wrong about God, about Jesus, about faith and the Bible and thus wasting my time doing this every day.

And yeah, maybe I am.

But even then, what do I stand to lose in believing that He died for me and only did so in order to help me see that I too could share in the same death, which is accomplished in the ceasing of my doing of those things which I know perfectly well bring only guilt and shame, a kind of change that both inspires me to be better and literally helps me do so?

Indeed, what do we stand to lose in the way of life spent following the hope of Christ that achieves only our growth in hope, in joy, in peace (even in this place so vastly void of the same)?

Rather, what more do we stand to gain if we’re not wrong about Him?

See, as we again talked just yesterday, that’s one of the oddest things about the human mind. It’s that we are so stubborn and short-sighted that we get caught in this sort of tunnel vision in which whatever it is that we’ve determined to be right is literally all that can be right.

And that again despite our each having been wrong plenty of times before.

And yet this world remains so adamant that He doesn’t exist and thus didn’t do what a strange few claim He did, all because that would then render sin also nonexistent, which would then achieve this idea of freedom we’ve just discussed which is believed by most to be nothing more than the ability to do whatever you want without consequence.

Friends, what’s the best outcome that can come from that? What is the grand accomplishment waiting to be accomplished by our being the only ones to lead the way in which our lives are lived? Do we know everything? Have we never been wrong? Never said something we shouldn’t have, done something we wish we hadn’t? Been proven mistaken about something that we’d been sure about?

Those have all happened to all of us.

And so, again, what if this world is wrong about Jesus? What do we stand to gain in that kind of freedom that’s there to be found in believing that He’s not there? What kind of life can come from that other than one that reality says we’ll all lose anyway?

Indeed, every single person will die.

Question is whether or not any of us will ever live.

And sure, maybe we are of the ability, the authority, the audacity to actually imagine that whatever we’ve been doing has been living. And yeah, maybe it has. But friends, point is that doing wrong has never managed to help anyone avoid dying.

And true, even doing right will still cause us to die in this life.

And so, granted, what’s the difference?

Well, it’s measured in where we go from here. Because, yeah, we are free to continue doing as we please and in this living as if God’s not there to please. Something we’ve all done plenty of to remember the way. But then again, we’re told that in Him we can change, and not only from sinner to saved, but, because of that, from death to life. Sure, we’ll still die, but He’s now shown that His kind of death is but a stepping stone to eternal life.

And that, to me, that just seems like a far better outcome than anything I can come up with inside of what’s long been a life filled with mistakes and misunderstandings.

No, I don’t want to rely on myself to find anything anymore as I know my tendency to get lost, confused, turned around or just lazy. And well, if I’ll not even trust myself, why then would I trust in anyone else who’s just like me to do what I know I can’t?

We need something different, someone different. And, well, what’s more different than Jesus and the Gospel that He lived that frees us from the law of sin and death as is broken in the flesh unto instead the law of hope and life that are both in Him who is forever?

Indeed, what have we to lose in turning our lives over to the striving to do those things which we hope might please Him who died for us so that we could live in Him?

Because again, what did He die for? Us to live. What does this verse say He died toward? God. And so what’s the point of the Gospel? For us to also die to sin so that we can instead turn and live life aimed again back toward God, who is the Creator of life and Sustainer of the same.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

And well, those three things sound like pretty nice things to find, especially with the last being promised forever should we try.

And yeah, trying means our dying, but friends, it’s only to a life of shame and sin. So then, what do we have to love except all that’s keeping us down and holding us back?

From what?

God.

That’s what all of this is all about. It’s about Him and His having created us to be His, and in fact going so far as to beat us to our grave so as to save us from the same. He wants us to come home to hope in that hope of leaving here and going home. How is that a bad thing?

No, I’ll never again be as convinced as I apparently once thought I was that faith in Christ wasn’t, isn’t worth all that much. For if the promise is everlasting life then it simply couldn’t be worth more. Even if He asks that we lay down a life.

Because He’s shown us all what said dying is both to and toward. It’s nothing but our dying to sin so that we again live toward God.

And there is no greater hope than our somehow hearing well done and welcome home.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold