Day 4046 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 13:12 NIV

The responsibility

It’s obviously something that we’ve all sought to refuse almost exclusively here inside what is a life in which we live as if such things are only detriments to our every delight and desire as are defined by the many things of this world in which we’ve left to live this life, one thus surrounded for still some time with what we watch daily the many around us enjoy and therefore measure as everything from pleasure to success. And thus we’ve come to equate such things as responsibility as only hindrances to what seem unto most here as the very outermost expectancy of even hope and happiness.

And as this world has too become us, well, thus too have become our feelings over such matters as these.

Indeed, we too, just like the many do, we seem to see through all baser human requirements such as personal responsibility, basic dignity, cultural humility and even common morality unto such an outcome in which such things now seem dumb. Truly, we’ve become a society of such rampant darkness that anything that in any way shines forth anything of any class or character, or even simple compassion, it’s all now seen as almost a deliberate attack aimed right at the seething underbelly for which our world has come to live.

Each of us then suckling upon the substance of an assumption fallen so far from the assurance in which we were once made and toward which we’re now called to return.

Hoping there for nothing more than to be ourselves unbothered by the burdens that have never been all that burdensome thanks to our having willfully chosen to at first become and then only forever remain basically ignorant as to the callings and consequences given us in Christ Jesus. Mostly because of this now almost perfect blend of what is a world that’s denied Him for so long that so many see doing the same as the only thing to do and too because, our having ourselves become of the same mind as the rest of a fallen and still falling mankind, the matter then becomes personal.

And if there’s anything the last few elections have taught us it’s that once you can make something a matter personal, well, your underlings will then fan the very flame that is our now common hate of anyone who in any way disagrees with our stances as are often anymore only stood upon this floor of a world that was once flooded for such violent separation between our hearts and Heaven.

Guess then we just take Him ironically at His word in which He’s said He won’t destroy the earth that way again whilst also taking such a promise foolishly for granted in that while a flood is no longer on the table, well, the rest of Scripture shows us that He’s plenty more options from which to choose whenever He should determine that He’s finally ready to lose this weight that the entirety of the human race has became thanks to our having each become as willing as our words and actions prove we are to seek out some way to prove we’re not His.

Thus the irony.

It’s proven in that our lack of responsibility, as is seen swelling inside all the lies we’re telling in these lives we’re selling for what’s amounting to nothing more than an affluence in worldly arrogance and human applause, it’s now become a cause for what should be a far greater concern concerning other things He’s said. Such as how those who don’t gather to Him shall be scattered when this world is inevitably shattered or how those who take not up their crosses are not worthy of His covering their many losses of all the betters they could and should have been.

Or how He shall return but once more to find then if there be faith upon the earth, taking home to Heaven those who are found having such a growing rarity whilst turning away from the same all those who then dare proclaim that they truly believed in this idea that all that mattered was what we did and that we thought it good.

No, then it won’t matter the number of prophecies we’d pronounced in His Name nor the legions of demons we denounced and ran out of those for whom we’d performed nor any of the other manmade miracles to which we’d ascribed our actions or intentions unto being part of. Rather, He’s told us plainly that “I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

A most denouncing denunciation if there ever was one that will in fact be one far more common than many of us would ever dare imagine.

And yet one oddly enough far easier for Him to fulfill thanks to our having all but taken it upon ourselves to both deny His call unto righteous responsibility in exchange for what’s anymore a clearly growing irreligious degeneracy as is aimed, with both increasing frequency and urgency, toward what’s a clear pleasing of humanity as is done anymore so easily that so many things become overnight sensations in what is this collective of nations in which going viral is now the ideal.

Used to be considered that virality was quite alarming amongst humanity as it often threatened the very vitality of humanity itself.

We’ve just managed to turn our darkness virtual and so such things as plagues are mostly only known upon computer screens upon which we see these things that ought not be seen such as pornography as other such moral degeneracy.

Each and every iteration a veritable darkness all its own, yet all such darknesses owned by he who is the god of this age who has indeed quite blinded the minds of unbelievers in this widespread consideration that has most folks thinking that our only true vocation is nothing but pleasing the nations via whatever said nations wish to see, hear, learn or pretend they haven’t known.

Indeed, we are an increasingly wicked world which, in all honesty, is something of a miracle as you’d think we’d had already hit our low point in realities such as holocausts and slavery and the sheer brutality that defined the Dark Ages as being dark for a reason. Truly, Christ’s crucifixion should itself have been the pinnacle of our seeking to prove just how much love and kindness and simple decency we’d managed to lose.

But no, nowadays we even target children in sex trafficking rings run or enjoyed by those who are in all these positions of power that we just adore so much such as politicians and rock stars.

Yes, we are indeed quite increasingly pleased and impressed with those either dressed in fancy suits complete with the right color tie that aligns with our side of some political divide or rather those barely dressed at all up there singing about every sin known to man with a 3-4 piece band backing them up.

And all the while the darkness just continues to creep in at first unrealized and then unnoticed and then unwanted and then unsure and then unneeded and it progresses onward until we’re all but completely undone and open to all manner of man’s misguided estimation as to what we should be doing with this one we life we have to give.

All because one of the darkness’s first undertakings is convincing us that giving is something foolish whereas getting is where it’s at.

Indeed, whilst the Scriptures tell us that it is more blessed to give than to receive as such shows a clear presence of humility and compassion as are both evidence of the Holy Spirit in action as is sent forth from He who is a Father of such alien love that He sent His only Son to die on behalf of the very ones who He knew would be none too thrilled to killed Him, alas the ways of this world rather teach us that to be truly blessed is only accomplished in our looking out for number one and, in this, likely treating everyone else as number two.

And you know what I mean.

Because such is a scene seen inside pretty much everything. I mean we’ve all but reinvented the Roman Colosseum inside such places as the sports in which the goal is to basically bludgeon your opponent until they’re bloody and broken or even literally unconscious all while a crowd watches and cheers and loves the violence so very much because we’ve become entirely desensitized to it thanks to the gore poured into nearly every movie we watch anymore.

Truly, we are an increasingly violent and venomous and just dark and twisted civilization. I mean, at this point can we even call this a ‘civilization’ considering the glaring lack of civility?

For civility is defined as that which is “of formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech.” It’s something synonymous with such words as courtesy, courteousness, politeness, mannerliness, gentlemanliness, chivalry, gallantry, graciousness, consideration, respect, gentility, cordiality, geniality, pleasantness, affability, politesse and common comity which is itself a courteous and considerate behavior shown unto others.

Tell me please which of those things are at all common or popular or even ever considered anywhere near standard operating procedure anymore!

Rather, again, many of them have become such foreign ideas that long gone are the days in which they were the ideals. Instead they’ve many of them become the butt of jokes and used in mockery of those considered prudish simply because the same are prudent enough to remain leery of the very clear disasters that our culture’s ongoing descent into darkness and depravity are showing every night on public tv!

My friends, this simply shouldn’t be!!

Because, like it or not, and it’s obvious most here clearly do not, the fact is that we’re all endowed by our Creator with, yes, certain inalienable rights, but so too among those is the call to be holy as He is holy. To seek for righteousness because He is righteousness. To love those around us with a love so genuine that we’d readily lay down our lives for those we consider our friends. To love Him in as much of a fraction as we possibly can because He so clearly loves us as was proven among us in Christ Jesus.

To even love our enemies as, well, loving those who love us is entirely too easy.

And He calls us further.

Why?

Because He went further. In fact He died for His enemies!

And we are His enemies.

Proven inside the darkness that is so thick around us that the same has since become us. Granted, perhaps such was just bound to happen. After all, a ship can only float for so long before the water upon which it floats finally proves that, nope, you don’t belong here unless you succumb to proving you don’t mind having to stay as is proven in only one single way:

Letting the water in.

Something that every ship and every crew thereupon is tasked with ensuring never happens because, once it does, it’s game over.

Friends, same can be said of the darkness we’re here walking through. All around us in this world is this endless temptation asking us to taste and see just how good life here can be. We’re all surrounded by such a swelling influx of stuff that brings unto us a level of satisfaction, of pleasure, of success, of power that checks off every single box that we’ve learned to draw from our having watched the very same sin-filled world as what handed us the pen.

Here, you do you. Try it all. Experience everything this world has to offer. Let nothing be off limits, refuse yourself no enjoyment, deny yourself nothing.

Such are the things we hear here on a daily basis. Indeed, we’ve all come upon such greed for such things as success and popularity that we’ve even resorted to taking drugs to help us lose weight all so that we needn’t make the kinds of change that begin such a process of taking back the responsibility that we gave away long ago that led to the weight that, no matter what the lies of this twisted world may have to say, we’re just not happy with having dragging us down and ruining our joy.

Yes, body positivity lasted just long enough for them to cook up enough batches of weight loss chemicals that they could afford to sell them cheap enough for the masses to afford.

Ironic how quickly our tunes change when we’re given something that does the hard work of changing for us.

All because we don’t want to change. We don’t want to do anything any different. We don’t want to have learn something new, do something else, stop doing all we honestly know we never should have done in the first place. Alas, shame is something long vacant in our world. No, blame took its place decades ago and we’ve never once stopped to look back.

Why?

Because shame inspires us back toward responsibility and, well, there’s very clearly not much that we hate more than such an idea that demands that we ourselves take the blame for whatever it may be that we became that we simply can’t help but to hate.

Indeed, we always manage to get a sliver of this ordeal right in our hating of something that we know isn’t as it ought to be.

Problem is that we’ve become so lost inside the darkness that allows us to hide the things we’ve allowed done unto us or even done unto ourselves that we too buy this lie that continues to sell that has us all thinking that since nobody knows the truth, neither then need we abide in it ourselves.

Rather we can just keep doing whatever we’ve become too weak, too lazy, too foolish to do anything about or fix in any possible way.

No, down here in the dark good enough is good enough.

And granted, maybe it is as in truth good enough seems unto us as the very basis of every best life being lived by those who don’t seem to yet understand that we all still stand to die before long. A lie itself that has us distracted by delight inside a world that so hates the Light of He who is the Christ that the vast majority here still use His Name as if a punchline thrown out just to make themselves sound cool to those who do the same.

I cannot begin to describe the visceral reaction I physically feel whenever I hear someone take the Lord’s Name in vain as if it means nothing.

As if He died for nothing!

I even saw someone post on social media a cartoon drawing of our Lord and Savior, the very Lamb of God and Friend of mine, all tatted up and holding a bottle of booze in one hand and a joint in the other with a caption that read, “If you don’t sin then Jesus died for nothing.”

Even retyping that made me physically ill and yet folks here throw that garbage around for nothing more than a quick chuckle and hopefully a like on the post.

We’re so stinking lost folks that it’ll take another of God’s miracles to find us.

Not because He has ever once lost us but simply because we seem all but adamant to live as if our only responsibility is that of running away from the 99 as fast as we can inside every day we have left.

Shame on us because shame is us and yet we know increasingly less of shame.

Rather we keep doing these kinds of things thinking that at best God doesn’t exist and at worst He hopefully can’t see that we’re living what are lives that are basically billboards for the resort that many here seem to assume hell will be.

All because we’ve all resolved to so dissolve our every personal responsibility to become more than we are that we don’t want to be anything more anymore. No, we’re good with who we are, evidenced in our gross unwillingness to change, in what is a world that we all seem still able to see isn’t anything near what we know it should be.

How is that?

How can we all be so unhappy with the world and yet still so pleased with ourselves and these lives we’re living inside it?

It’s like we can see the difference but can’t understand there should be a difference.

One between us and here because here isn’t home.

This world is just our tomb, one we’re meant to do as He did and strive to leave behind rather than make look and feel so nice that we’ve come into the mind that we seem to mind not the thought of staying forever.

Friends, what is it of the Father that we hate so much that we continue to do all this stuff? Surely it’s not His love, His mercy, His kindness in offering us forgiveness. It truly cannot be the promise of salvation, the hope of life eternally. It’s not that He came in Christ and gave up His life so as to help us see that we’d lived ours wrongly.

No, it’s that He does show us that we’ve each come to see Him as nothing inside a life lived inside such darkness that inhumanity is standard and praise for God is not.

Instead faith in the Gospel of Christ Jesus remains foolishness to those who are perishing.

All because we’ve all become so far gone that we know only to hate whomever may dare help us see just how far gone we are into the worst of all directions possible, the very direction we all go communally if not in fact culturally.

Yes, it’s always been a cultural confusion, this delusion that has us all determined to make a home inside the darkest of this world’s darkness. An alleyway we all hide in because we think it conceals our every indiscretion and poor decision.

It doesn’t!

Rather our continuing to return to this darkened world only continues to show Him that we know nothing of love, nothing of hope, nothing of truth, nothing of life!

For He is all the above and so long as we deny Him then we too deny them any welcome in our lives.

And this is why this world dies, both a little more every day and on that coming day once for all.

Will He take us home then or will He leave us home in a life we’d lived asking Him to leave us alone and take with Him His every reminder of our basic responsibilities given us in light of His having given us a life that was meant to do far more good with than we’ve ever come close to even caring to try?

No, He will not force anything upon anyone as He’s simply too loving for that. Rather He will give unto each of us an eternity spent wherever our every word, thought and action told Him we wanted to be. Indeed, He will leave us alone, allowing us to remain in this darkness that has become our home.

And yes, such is so very easy that most here will most definitely take Him up on that chance to be left alone to do as they see fit. We see this every single day as the darkness around us grows thanks to fewer and fewer choosing to uphold His call to live as if cities upon hills meant to inspire those around us to look upward so that they might accidentally learn to look toward the sky rather to their sins.

But friends, the time runs thin for our to turn back toward this responsibility given in this opportunity to point others toward the only Hope there is of something better than this.

For this night is indeed nearly over as I honestly can’t fathom how He can take much more of watching what all we’re doing down here.

Let us not be found doing as the world is when He returns. For while the world does as it does because it has no fear of Him, fear’s one thing you don’t want to find the hard way.

Especially when He’s gone out of His way to make the Way for our to learn easily what all here have obviously forgotten:

That “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”

Thus meaning that darkness is not allowed near Him as it is but the opposite of Him. And so then if there be any darkness found upon that day still in us then nor shall we be welcomed unto Him. That’s the responsibility we now have, to get the darkness out of our lives and never welcome it back in.

Thankfully He will help. Sadly most here still can’t seem to see just how much help we all need.

Can you?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold