Day 4029 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 5:7 NIV

Undercomplicated

Not to say that it’s not still complicated as it most certainly is seeing as most things in life are. Rather it’s just saying that maybe it’s not nearly as hard as we’ve all so often imagined it to be. For what if, instead of trying to see it through all the confusions and delusions that we’ve designed inside these times, we sought to see it through the simplicity of simply doing all He’s always asked us to? Again, wouldn’t necessarily make any of it any easier.

But I dare say it wouldn’t make it any harder either.

And that’s because faith is actually a supremely simple calling. It’s so simple in fact that all it really asks is a childlike blend of hope, trust, patience and belief. All of which are things that all of us offer to a great many things both throughout our lives and that every single day. Indeed, we are all giving these things away to things all the time that actually haven’t anything of everything that He’s not only already promised but are in fact now proven thanks to His having proven the promise.

What promise?

That we’ve somewhere else to be as was proven in His coming here only to leave at what was the guarantee that He had to go only to make ready a place with Him given soon unto those who knew Him as who He asked they believed Him to be. And indeed, He even went so far as to make this requested belief entirely too easy. For He walked among us for a time teaching us how to better live a life and then gave up His own only to take it back up once it had been laid down.

All done simply to show us that it could be, which is something He knew we’d need since He knew we’d be a people who are pretty adamant on this whole idea that seeing is believing. And so, in His all surpassing kindness He lovingly gave us what is a sign that we can’t deny, though many still do, all so that we could do what little He’d then call us to which is our sharing in what He’d done.

Albeit to a largely shrunken degree of suffering.

Not to say there won’t be none as there will be as, well, it’s not an easy thing to leave. To leave what? Well, everything. And indeed, this is where we seem to see the difficulty. And rightly so! Because we do indeed have then a lot to leave when the leaving is asked to encompass everything. For there are a lot of things both in this world and thus in the life that all of us have come to live in what is basically an ongoing lockstep with the same.

Yes, all of us have at times been so worldly that it would be truly impossible to tell us apart, and that even for He who knows the heart. Why? Because the heart tells both the mouth what to say and the body what to do and so much of all we’ve said and done has been did as if we’ll only ever live here under the sun where the Son still really isn’t welcome.

And our each having become so much like the world in which He’s still not welcome, we’ve thus too done things ourselves that extended a pretty blatant disinvitation unto Him. It’s never really been an RSVP kind of thing but rather our telling Him that His reservation unto our own salvation had been revoked thanks to our agreeing with a world that lives still as if said hope’s a joke.

Which it isn’t.

But alas, so many here still seem to assume it is that they remain of this general mindset that a life’s best to be lived as if He doesn’t. And while this idea, idolized by many for what are fairly obvious reasons, does indeed bring with it an equally fair benefit as is found in our being left able to feel as if there can be no consequences to be met on the other side of any of our actions, that’s really about all it can accomplish. Just a baser assumption of freedom being seen best inside our doing of whatever we want.

Which is exactly what most people seem to want.

But the question has to eventually become for what? Because what is our version of freedom accomplishing for us? In what ways is it bettering anything, anyone? What is improving down here under the sun in what is a place in which many live as if the Son isn’t? Living, that is. What benefit does such a belief agree to let us have?

For we do understand that every benefit we have is given, right?

Granted, we’ve become of the confusion that we actually still call them rights and even have pieces of paper literally spelling out which ones we have and why. But still, such pieces of paper pretty much only prove the point. The point being that no matter what anyone may like to call them, rights, benefits, liberties, freedoms, the end result is always the same and that is that they come from those from whom we assume we need to seek their agreeance unto our having them.

And the problem basically implodes in that those we know to look to, or rather just continue to look to, as the source of these directives which all but direct the course of our daily lives are merely those who are no different than us. Yes, we look to these folks called politicians, presidents, kings, queens, these kinds of things to tell us what we’re free to do, who we’re free to be. Indeed, all but all of every life as is lived down here is spent looking to, leaning on, learning from only one another whatever the other is either willing to let us do or not so much.

And again, it’s a fairly uncomplicated system in which there are rules and laws and various punishments levied in the event of the breaking thereof.

But even that seems to have become quite complicated thanks to there being mostly nothing but humans involved who each have their own personal biases and beliefs through which they, and maybe even they alone, seem to see as being the way in which things ought to be done.

And so it all just sort of devolves into this general hope of their being honor in this place.

Which definitely proves the problem because, well, there just ain’t!

At least not nearly enough to come anywhere close to ever holding up what are these frameworks that were founded to remain the foundational principles of the places and peoples for whom they were originated. For they were, again, not all that much different from who we are today.

And yet so many of us are so enthralled by them, either the upholding of them or rather the blatantly chosen failure to do so, that we spend a large portion of our lives living as if it’s only all these rules and laws and other such societal expectations that are the foundations of how we’re supposed to live our lives. And granted, many of them do help, at least somewhat, with the basic guiderails within which a people should remain so as to hopefully try and restrain what is the basic reality of all humanity.

Which is that we’re stubborn, stupid, stiff-necked and yet crooked.

We are by no means the ones who should ever be looked to or leaned on or learned from. Why? Just look at the life you lived in the past you’ve already left behind!

Sure, there may have been a few accidental decencies in there somewhere. But the overall reality is that our every past is a sea of depravity in which we’d sunk ourselves so very deep that very own souls couldn’t really see anything other than whatever it was that we wanted at the time.

For again, such is our overall estimate as to what true freedom is.

Because surely it isn’t rules. Surely freedom doesn’t need laws. There’s no way that real freedom would ever agree to any kind of limitation. Right?

Well…

Not really. Because, well, if never we have any understanding of even our own limitations, the past has proven that we’ll probably ignore them if not brazenly try to deny them, disprove them in our then doing of things that we either shouldn’t out of moral reasons or simply thanks to physical repercussions. Indeed, such things as pain and shame are supposed to be teachers which help us to live our lives within the safe confines of reality.

Problem is that we’ve long been a people who prove willing to endure a great many things (sound teaching never among them for some reason) in our still seeking to find some way to ensure that our lives are both filled and yet filling still with all the fun, frills, thrills and theories that we still seem to assume will make them have more meaning and merit as are anymore only proven in popularity and profit.

Which should itself be enough of a glaring reality that we needn’t any other to help us turn around and head back to our senses.

But alas, no, no we still need as much help as we can get apparently.

Which is why Jesus had to die.

It’s not because He was bored. Wasn’t because we were doing okay living this life our way. Wasn’t because He loves us so much that He wanted to buy our ticket to continue doing only all the messed up stuff we’d been doing. No, it was because, as He said Himself, they (being we) know not what they’re doing. And indeed, despite all of our present progress in such things as technology and all the ease it continues to afford, we still don’t seem to have any idea what we’re doing.

Because we’ve still got folks running around as if they make the rules and can thus break them however, whenever they choose.

And granted, this does seem to be the case seeing as how there’s really not much in the way of true justice in this place. Yeah, we’ve got people who arrest people caught doing wrong. Yeah, some of those ne’er-do-wells do get in some trouble. Yeah, some of the more egregious offenders are given extensive sentences. But even then, they can often appeal, get off on good behavior, claim temporary insanity (not sure ours is ever really temporary though), and mostly end up back on the outside probably running amok all over again.

All because they’ve become quite convinced that their lives are only ever best lived when they’re lost inside doing only whatever they want to do.

Which is something all of us do. Granted, there are some who do live within the rules and do their best to not ever be taken into arrest as, well, we’ve got jobs to do and families to support and going to court just isn’t much fun and bail is expensive and the time served could again be extensive and, well, it’s just not worth it. And so we agree then that the law is good whenever we do agree to live in adherence thereto.

But yet that’s something that we for some reason struggle to do when it comes to faith.

And that’s probably because faith is foolishness unto those who’ve not placed it in Christ Jesus. Which is pretty obviously the last place that many in this place have placed it. And it’s obvious because it’s pretty hard to find all that many who seem to have devoted their lives to becoming more like Him. And sadly even among those who do so claim to have so done, even some of them seem more of the mind to ask Him to become like them.

It’s all just caving in on itself.

All because we just keep trying to find a way to please ourselves.

Mostly in only our doing of whatever it is that we want to do, which is anymore usually only whatever it is that we see another enjoying or being applauded for. All because what we’ve become is again so worldly in just about every regard that we only regard just about everything and everyone from such a worldly perspective that we can’t differentiate anything from the world anymore.

It’s all just combined into a general way of life in which people are both the prize and punishment as is met in either acceptance or disagreement.

And it’s because of this that all of us have, at times at least, done our best to please those around us. Even going so far as to allow them some sort of lordship over us either via positions of power such as police or politicians or estimations of success are as seen inside such things as wealth and welcome. Indeed, so much of all we do is only done trying to placate or replicate someone.

Again proving that people pleasing has become the overall basic approach to all but all of life.

Because it’s the one that offers unto us the best possible chance to both stay out of trouble and probably have some company along the way to wherever the world is going.

Because that’s literally the only place we can ever expect to end up so long as we live our lives looking only to the lines drawn for us by those who lord life over us for whatever reason we’ve allowed them to.

But again, very few here seem to do the same with He who came to set free indeed those who had thought they’d already bought said perfected freedom in their approach to a life as was lived, perhaps still is, with only this understanding of freedom that’s stood for only whatever it is that they’ve wanted, wanted to do, or simply never really wanted to.

Yes, this world sells us this idea of life in which we’re the ones who get to decide what’s right and wrong. And we’ve bought this garbage for so long now that we’ve even agreed to all of these hierarchies upon which we place people from whom we then seek to learn how to do what they’ve done to reach those rungs that we want to reach ourselves.

Thus making pleasing people all but the process through which we seem to expect to reach our goal which is nothing more than being those others look to, lean on, learn from.

Because it would sure be nice to live that kind of life that others loved so much that they turned to us to lead the way for them to follow.

Except there’s still that whole part about how we know not what we’re doing.

That and, again, the only place most seem to be getting is only further lost within this world that is so lost now that they still find no reason to be found be He who came to save their souls.

Why?

Because He asked that we stop running with the world and thus quit doing pretty much everything that most here will never turn from.

Why?

Because He sees where this world is heading and He doesn’t want that outcome for anyone. And in fact He’s so against our having a share in it that He died to save us from it.

And yet vastly few take such a gift serious.

Because it’s just not popular to do so. Because most here still see faith for only the rules and laws and expectations involved. And sure, there are some. And yeah, many of them are quite demanding. Such as loving God. Loving people. Doing unto others as we’d have them do unto us. Forgiving our enemies and asking for forgiveness the same. Turning away from the doing of things that have always brought us shame. Reading the Word and from it learning how to better live a life.

And that unto the promise of living forever.

What a nightmare!

Or at least most here sure act like it is. All because it stands, He stands in a truly blatant opposition unto all that is opposed to Him. Problem then being that He is the Life and thus only opposes everything that is thus opposed to life!

Proving then that many here would rather die than stop doing even those things they don’t actually enjoy doing.

And yet we’re supposed to be the ones we either look to to lead or expect others to follow?

Friends, we’ve been talking for a couple of days about the things this world is doing and what’s been promised to be coming because of it. And, well, it all kind of culminates in this Word here asking us to not be partners with nor thus partakers of anything that anyone in this world is doing. Why? Because odds are that people in this world are only doing worldly things for worldly reasons that are usually then only aimed at winning worldly prizes.

And yeah, some of them are nice to imagine. And sure, all of us have found many of them and can thus attest to the fact that they are rather nice to have.

But everything in this world is passing away, and so why then spend even another day trying to find anything here?

That’s all He asks.

Just that we stop settling so short of everything better by our continuing to only look for everything here. That we trust in Him to lead the way rather than trusting in anyone here where everyone is going a different direction toward what are only two entirely different destinations, one being far more popular than the other. And not for any valid, logical or reasonable reason.

No, rather hell exists simply because people don’t want to end up in Heaven as is proven in their continuing to live like heathens despite Christ dying such a horrible manner in His attempt to measure what should mean most.

Most just didn’t get it. Even more never will.

Why then live our lives doing anything they do, much less trying to prove that we’re like them only to, at best, be liked by them?

Friends, there is nothing and nobody in this place that can save our souls nor then promise us eternal life. And yeah, the One who can and does does have some simple requests that, honestly, are just that. Because we should love God. We should love others. We should forgive as we should know that we need forgiveness too. We should want to do good, and not just because we’re expected to.

No, we should want to do good because we should know that doing wrong doesn’t lead to anything we want to see, be, become or remain.

Because shame sucks and thus sin does too!

Why then continue living in it or looking to those who do to help us figure out what’s best to do?

No, this world has become nothing more than every example of everything we should never want to be what with all the greed, gluttony, idolatry, selfishness, arrogance, immorality, immodesty, dishonesty and growing depravity.

All of which is all He asks that we give up.

Friends, how is that a bad thing? How is it hard?

Or does it only seem so because we’ve become so lost amongst those who’ve willfully overcomplicated the simplicity of salvation?

The truth is that there is nothing complicated about the Christian faith. Sure, it asks that we do away with what was a life in which all we found was guilt and regret. And He asks that we follow His lead whereby we learn His expectations. But godly expectations bring with them a sense of peace, of purpose, of freedom that we’ll not find anywhere else.

Because nothing else, especially here, can lead us toward anything that isn’t here.

And looking around at what the world’s become, I think it’s fair to say that this isn’t Heaven.

Why then follow along with those who live as if they don’t want to leave? For what is there to stay for in what is a place filled with so much to flee from?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold