Day 4024 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Timothy 6:11 NIV

Run for your life

Because it will turn out that there is no life amongst those who are no longer alive. And this is, in truth, a quite hard truth to accept, to understand as from where we stand it sure does seem as if we’re stood amongst man who are alive in what is a life that we all share to some degree inside this place in which we see so very many who both look like you and me, talk like you and me, live like you and me. But the problem is that indeed looks and words and wants can prove to deceive.

And so too then can life itself perhaps not be all that it may elsewise seem.

Such as that that is spent upon this chase for all time will come to prove was a waste of itself upon this outlook that worried only for that which this world sells. And there are truly a great deal of these unruly priorities being placed still daily upon things that are themselves ever changing in what is a world proving persistently the same: Changing.

It’s all just always changing. Nothing ever seems willing to stay the same or to have very many who would prefer it to. No, rather all of humanity is lost racing both for and toward and perpetually within this vast insanity that has so many so stuck to such triviality as vanity and prosperity and greed and gluttony and every other man-made monotony that mankind might become of the mind to assume is needed in life to live a life that’s worth living.

For anymore all anyone seems to assume of life itself is that it’s but this empty shell in need of filling if they’re ever to be found feeling as if they’re alive. Indeed, so much of our time, a limited quantity to be sure, it’s being spent upon the pursuit of things that this world has convinced us all that we all need in dissimilar unlimited quantity. And we’ve each become so convinced of our ongoing need for ever more than we’ve any of us ever had before that we’ve too become entirely disinterested in the standing call unto discernment.

Because as far as we can tell from where we stand, we’ve entirely too much we need to find, to feel, to be, to become and only not enough time in which to accomplish it all.

And thus we continue this fall into what is this race through what is a life that is lived inside this place that has so much that indeed so many still seem to so clearly assume that we all need so badly that we’ve, rather than discerning needs from wants and wants for worries, no, instead we just give ourselves daily unto the making of a living not living a life.

That’s what we talked about yesterday. It’s this reality in which all but all of humanity is so caught up in this constant hurry to have more that is has us doing things that we perhaps might not want to do, might not feel good about doing, may in fact feel quite bad for having done in order to have whatever we’ve had or hope to soon underneath what remains the sun that’s about to set upon every single life.

Yes, even those who’ve come to forget that there’s always a new sunrise coming with every new day.

Problem is that our way of life spent so busy inside this hurry to have and hold and hope to have some more to hold, it’s left us looking at our tomorrows as the only promises we need as they, by tonight, are the very best thing that may happen to hold and thus have all that we’ve not come to have and hold quite yet.

Yeah, we need as many tomorrows as our ability to take every today for granted is willing and able to leave us assuming we might have still coming.

Because when life is again seen always as empty and thus in need of filling, in what is ironically a place that always has a new and renewed plenty that it’s more than willing to offer, we eventually just become the perpetual consumers consuming life itself inside a life we spend not worried at all about what we’re doing as what it helps us to have eventually just becomes all that matters most.

Just our always having more.

And as I’ve glanced off of in the last couple of posts, God’s not against us having stuff. In fact the Garden of Eden was planned and then planted with so much provision that man could have existed there for all of forever without anything in the way of any need but rather always surrounded by God’s goodness and giving of whatever they may need, whatever we may need.

So we can see clearly that God isn’t against us having things as He has created things that we do need to have such as food and water and shelter and air which fills our lungs and thus allows us to live.

No, the problem becomes that food and water and shelter and air filling our lungs has become unto us not enough as we’ve come to want for more inside what is again a world that offers always the same. Indeed, we’ve become a culture of creation, seeking always to show off our creativity inside of things we’ve created of things we had on hand with which to create them. And even this isn’t a bad thing necessarily as so too has He given us each an ability to make use of something.

Question is what we’re using it for.

What do we want it for? What do we need it for? For if He’s neither against our having of things and too has given us things to both have and use to accomplish or achieve things that we need to have, be, see, do, there must thus be a line in there somewhere that we’ve clearly crossed that we were simply never supposed to.

And again, as I’ve mentioned of late, the line is not our having of things but rather that of our things having us.

It’s called idolatry, and no, it’s not just about little golden figurines or massive ornate marble carvings upon which man marvels. No, it’s actually anything that takes from Him anything that He could and thus should be given. Be time, effort, interest, intention, attention, anything that steals from Him something that we elsewise give unto it, it is an idol. It is something we serve. It is something we honor. It is something we glorify.

And, well, problem’s then proven in that He is a jealous God.

Not in the way in which we know/use jealousy as is anymore only something that has to do mostly with only our comparative nature seeking always for the substance of the sort of life that someone else is showing that they’ve achieved. No, rather He’s a jealous God because He knows that both we know not what we doing and that because what we’re so often doing is achieving nothing in regard to living a life, having a faith, holding a hope that is even able to offer a hope.

No, this is actually why He who is the Christ tells that one guy to leave the dead to bury their dead.

Both a passage that’s of late been always in my head and on my heart but also one of the most eye-opening callings in all of Christianity.

Because it seems almost too heavy.

For how could this Shepherd, this Savior tell someone to leave someone to die basically? How could Jesus, who came down from Heaven to free us, only in the midst of doing so also tell us to leave those who aren’t freed? Is this not something of a counter-productivity? Are we not meant to try and save those around us via our staying amongst them and there pointing them unto Him who can save? Is this not the call of all to become, in Him, fishers of men?

Are we not to go into all the world and proclaim once in its furthest corners the Gospel of Christ Jesus?

Yes we are.

But, as He showed us within His eating with sinners and tax collectors, to be among doesn’t mean we need to be alike.

And in truth, to be holy is to be set apart.

And indeed, within His Word we can all clearly read that call to “come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

What then is an unclean thing? Well, in short it’s anything tainted by our trying to attain it. It’s anything that God made that we’ve since made into an idol, an ideal, an idea that we again give any of our time or intent unto our trying to get, to have, to hold, to house our hope.

Why?

Because He is meant to be our hope, our home, our joy, our peace, our purpose, our promise. He is meant to be our everything and so then anything that we give anything that isn’t Him, well, our doing this is sin because anyone who knows the good they ought to do and yet doesn’t do it, this is sin for them. And, well, what’s better for us to do than exactly what He calls us to inside His asking that we come to the cross and there lay down our lives in exchange for a cross our own?

Upon which we continue to kill whatever in us is dead already.

See, that’s the difference that should be seen inside a disciple’s agreement unto discernment. His Spirit is sent forth to both remind us of all that He’s told us and thereby lead us unto a continued growth in the truth. And this process, one called sanctification, it’s ongoing so long as we’re going to be here in what will remain, whilst here, a place in which so many people have so many misplaced priorities that all of us remain at constant risk of our too being swept away by all the things this world’s way of life has so many others racing to find or feel.

Indeed, every single day it remains entirely clear to see that all but all of humanity is so distracted by so many things and their endless wanting thereof that most here have no time left for, well, “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” In fact everyone here is so constantly busy trying to continue living a life that has them trying to buy all they believe is worth both the work and worry that has them in their lives and minds so hurried that they have no time for God.

Do we?

Again, we should as such is most obviously the right thing to do seeing as how, well, He is the Way, the Truth, the Life and thus remains the only One who holds the keys to both life and death. And, well, this should help us to understand the necessity of doing whatever it may be that might, in any way, possibly please Him, honor Him, glorify Him, give Him then whatever we have that we thus aren’t living our lives giving unto anything else.

But again, the problem is that we’re still found along this ground on which and in which the vast majority of those around us are still continuing to treat, to see, to assume as being everything or holding everything that is, unto them, everything from hope to home. And it’s this common estimation of this world being our final destination that has so many so wasted upon this constant wanting of only all that’s here. So focused on it in fact that, again, they’ve left no time for Him.

Which can by no means please Him, honor Him or ever even imagine to approach what it could be to bring Him glory.

No, for so long as we still give anything to anything that isn’t Him, we’re thus forsaking Him who died on the cross to prove He’d never forsake us.

And, well, that just ain’t right.

And yet sadly that’s become our way of life. Because in this life, the way we live it, most of what we’re doing is only something that will eventually leave us proven as those who were lost and didn’t want to be found but rather wished only to be left alone to live this life as we saw fit as was seen as best lived trying to fit within it all that we grew to assume we needed within it in order to fill it simply because, like the dead, we assumed life empty of itself without the presence of something else.

And granted, odds are we don’t see it like that as we always try to remain deceived into our always trying to think that all of everything we’re doing is right to be done. And that’s simply because we don’t want to be wrong because that would demand we change. And, well, if there’s anything we don’t want to do it’s change because, in truth, we like it this way. In fact it could be argued that we love living this way. Indeed, there are many here who do seem to either already love their lives or are always still trying to find some way to love them more.

Problem is that He called us to lay them down, let them go, all but set everything we own on fire and watch it all go up in smoke.

Actually, He wouldn’t have even asked us to watch it burn but rather to remember Lot’s wife who, again doing other than what He’d told her to, decided to look back upon what was a life as was lived in a place that God had determined wasn’t to be there anymore.

How many days do we still spend looking back on the things that God has saved us from?

Heartbrokenly I must admit that I’ve just done that just yesterday. I slid back into a past that I was increasingly convinced I’d finally left behind for the freedom I’ve felt likewise increasing in the days and months since my last relapse. And indeed, it’s hurts like death to look back upon he who was dead and, for whatever reason that I still don’t understand, was exhumed just yesterday afternoon.

That’s why He calls us to leave the dead to bury their dead.

It’s not because He doesn’t want to save them, to heal them, to help them. He does. It’s just that He knows the odds of us wanting to be helped, to be healed, to be saved. And that, well, the odds aren’t good. Because rather sadly wide remains the road paved unto destruction and purchased by the many who continue walking upon it. And too that there be but few who remain willing to follow the path plotted and planned by He who came to take us few by the hand and help us home.

And no, as much as we may be here to share the Good News, the hard truth is that not many will hear it as instead their ears and hearts and eyes and lives and minds remain ever-itching for that way of life ever-filling with all that is in and of and for and from this one place in which they will have indeed, sadly, had their reward.

And so, in that regard, yeah, perhaps there’s even something of a kindness to be found in leaving the dead to bury their dead. Because, well, if they’re of those many who are on the road to a horrid eternity, then leaving them to enjoy their last days of being happy is maybe the kindest thing that could be done. Again, not that He wants not to save everyone, just that He knows that most will never come to know that they need to be saved.

Why?

Because they love their lives. They love all the stuff that they’ve stuffed inside their hearts, their homes, their hopes. They love this approach to an existence that exists for only always something more, something else. Indeed, a great many people here are so distracted trying to find more and more of all that’s here that they’re all but perfectly disinterested in all that isn’t here.

Such as, well, “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.”

No, this world and its way continues to show us every single day that those kinds of things aren’t to ever again be as popular as they are important. Because most here don’t think they’re important. Because, well, they’re not needed to accomplish the kind of life that we’ve all come to believe as being alive. No, if anything they’re hurdles and hindrances to the way of life this world’s come to live.

They slow us down, turn us around, ask us to reconsider everything we’ve ever wanted and to even delight in learning to deny ourselves the same.

All because they’re all aimed at our honoring God and serving the same, and thus never again honoring or serving ourselves.

And, well, that idea will never sell unto a people who’ve been bought by this belief that this life is both empty and yet filled so easily as their having here of all the things that this world continues to try and convince us are everything.

Again friends, He is meant to be our everything in light of everything He’s done to save us, help us, heal us from what we’ve done and been and become.

Is He?

The point is that in this life there is something we’re all fleeing from. Is it here or is it Him? The simplicity of reality in regard to faith, hope, love, mercy, healing, Heaven itself is that there are only two directions we can go. We can either continue to grow in regard to the ways of this world, as again many are, or we can repent of that way, from that way, and turn thus unto the Son who is, again, the only Way.

We can’t do both.

We cannot pursue both the things of this world and too He who came to save us from going down in the flames that this place is plummeting toward. It’s just not possible.

Which is why He calls us to flee from all such things as we’ve been talking of late: Greed, lust, gluttony, idolatry the lot. Indeed, He tells us plain that no man can love both God and money, nor then anything that we so often try to live only to buy with the same. But we can love both God and godliness, God and holiness, God and righteousness, God and faith, God and love, God and endurance, God and gentleness, God and goodness, God and hope, God and peace, God and purpose.

Why?

Because He is everything.

But He won’t abide beside anything that this world has come to live as if of equal worth unto Him.

So we have to choose what we win and when lose all that was lost anyway. And friends, it’s growing clearer every day this world is lost and, well, doesn’t seem to really care to be found.

Thus we flee.

We walk away. We leave this world and its way behind because there comes a time within every life that everyone must simply choose to either follow God’s lead or, like most, leave Him behind.

Indeed, something will be left behind in the living of every life. And the truth is that what we pursue is what proves that for which we hope to find. And, well, He who is the Truth is also the Life, and that doesn’t really seem like the best thing to leave behind. So let us then pursue only whatever leads us closer to Him who is our only Way home.

And never again anything less because this is a call to run for our lives toward the only One who gives us the promise of continuing to live them forever with Him.

So yes, let’s leave everything else as everything else is indeed only everything less.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold