Day 4048 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ezekiel 36:26 NIV

The replacement

Here inside what’s become a life in which we all live as if life itself is meant to be filled, and that sadly with only all that this world is itself filled with, we’ve thus come to assume that anything we lose is something that stands to evidence a failure of sorts. It’s a mistake made whenever we lose something in a world in which everyone seeks to gain as much as they might. And so this call to literally lay down a life in step with He who did the same is something that’s bound to sound fairly strange.

Definitely not the kind of thing our kind would ever consider conducive to life as we’ve come to live it.

Which is both the point and problem.

It’s something of a delusion proven in that we know not what we’re doing and yet we do so much inside our every day that we don’t then have any way by which to gauge what all of it might matter from the majority of it that probably doesn’t. We’ve simply so accepted this assumption as to life’s purpose, or at least one of them, being the filling thereof that we’ve all but finally succumbed to the very same idea.

Granted, we had no real way of knowing that it would happen the way that it has, other than our daily ability to watch everyone else squander this opportunity to live for more than most here seem to. But the issue seems to be that we’ve each come to see ourselves and thus our lives through what is a lens affixed before our eyes that tells us that our lives are going fairly well.

After all, just look at all our stuff!

Indeed, our stuff has become the stuff of legend, each of us hoarding up so much we’ve sought to have and hoped to hold that our now holding it up for all to see seems to be the very finish line that we always thought it would be in life. Didn’t really know that we’d get all this stuff and only then find we feel still this need to continue to seek all but incessantly for even more to hold and in which to hope.

Rather I think we’ve all kind of expected hope to be something of a one-and-done kind of deal.

Like we’d finally reach this place in time, this point in life in which we could finally say we truly had all we’d come to need. That we could be happy, content with the content of our existence. That we could eventually amass enough stuff that we could look upon its sum and no longer have to assume that it was enough.

No. We thought we would know when our lives were finally fulfilled.

And yet never they are.

Are they?

You see, this is the substance of this way of life we’ve been living. It’s this endless sea of things we see or happen to hear that then become new hopes that we hope to hold. This is the precise reason that all these storage lockers are in existence. It’s because we’ve become so convinced that our lives are to be measured by their contents that we continue to store up for ourselves treasures of earth whilst on earth, never once seeing that everything that we focus on filling here is only taking focus away from, and thus leaving emptier, that other place to which we’ve been called to store up our treasure.

As something of a replacement promised in response to our embracement of His promise of a replacement that finds us fit to be found welcome into that place that is a replacement for this place in which we’ve placed our every hope and horror.

Hope of having more and horror of having to lose it or leave it behind someday.

A day which few here ever seem to really feel any need to worry about.

For obvious reasons. Many of which are these things that we all continue to willfully become convinced we don’t have to lose. For after all, why would a loving Father ask us to let go of what we love? Doesn’t seem very nice. And indeed, this is the vice, this collecting of junk and gunk as done in greed, that has caused us to invent a new gospel, little g, that more closely mimics our many misunderstandings as to the importance of the contents amongst which we’re so proudly standing.

It’s this deception that tells us that God’s there only to ensure the expressed fulfillment of our every dream and desire. And granted, there is that part in Scripture where He does tell us that He will give us the desires of our hearts. Problem is it comes with a caveat in that in order to find this promise of His giving us these desires we’ve so come to desire we have to as first, and don’t miss this, “take delight in the Lord.”

Something that none of us have ever really learned to do here inside this way of life in which we live afraid to lose all that we’ve come to learn to love of what is a world that we’ve all known as a home that we’re thus afraid to leave behind.

And it’s obvious.

For how could we honestly say that we’ve come to live that way in which we delight in the Lord if still we’re hesitant to move toward Him? And, well, is this not pretty much exactly what we’re saying so long as all this other stuff continues to have any semblance of any importance?

Friends, what here can offer us what He has?

And since eternal life exists in nothing in a place that is promised to be both filled with those are perishing, because we all die in life, and too eventually perishing itself, because He’s never been one to lie, then again I ask what here should remain of such importance that we allow it to keep us at a distance from He who came to close said gap by emptying our grave?

Granted, we’ve still a body we’re using for the moment which will be returned to the dust from which it came.

But so too shall our soul return to He from whom it came.

Which then is of more importance?

The flesh or the spirit?

Sadly in this life, at least in regard to how we’ve all lived it, it’s obvious that the flesh is considered far more important as we all put far more importance on the things that only deal with the flesh. We worry about everything from what we eat to how we dress to ensuring our houses and cars and jobs and spouses are able to impress all the others who themselves have come to look only at what can be seen, obviously then missing that other Scripture in which we read that that which is seen is temporary whereas all that isn’t seen is eternal.

But since we’ve become all but bound to this belief that seeing is believing, well we’re then too bound to being stuck believing for only all that’s only temporary.

Because that’s all the eye can see.

And indeed, this is something that again hits me quite personally as I too have lived a life in which I’ve grown hesitant to lose so much of what I’ve come to love so much that I’ve had to have entirely too many entirely too deep conversations with myself in which I’ve had to convince myself that it was okay to get rid of things. I literally sold something a while back and it took me over a week to ship it out because I kept going back and forth as to whether or not I wanted to keep it.

Still find myself even now kind of regretting that I did go ahead and send it out.

Why?

Because I, like you, we’ve all become entirely too attached to stuff. From the houses we have to the cars we drive to these endless ideas for more things with which to fill our lives, life here has become almost all about only all that we have or hope to be able to afford before long. And I’m not saying that none of it means nothing for even the Bible tells us that God fully understands that we need things like food and shelter and clothing.

But “is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”

Well, no. Not to us. In fact that’s exactly the kind of stuff that we’ve all come to spend an unholy amount of time worrying about. Again, I’ll offer up an example from my own stumble, one that will actually combine the both. Years ago I got a kidney stone, worst, most painful experience of my life. And so that night in which I was all but begging to die so the pain could end, I made a deal with myself that I would do whatever I could that could in any way help to avoid going through that again.

This led to me cutting out of my diet anything of oxalate, as that’s one of the main ingredients in one of the most common types of kidney stones. And so, as of today I literally cannot remember the last time I’ve had peanuts, chocolate, tea, etc. And this tied in perfectly with my wanting then to get even healthier back when I started working out and eating better. And this led to me losing weight and finally being able to buy clothes outside the big and tall section.

Far more options by the way!

And yet, even having rid my life of all this food that I don’t eat anymore and losing all the weight that I have and now being able to wear all the cool clothes I want, I still find myself spending an exorbitant amount of time worrying about this very same stuff.

Why?

Because this way of life that we’ve all come to live is something of this ongoing worry. Every single day we find something to worry about. Maybe it’s our diet and both how sick we feel and how much better we imagine we might if only we could convince ourselves to start eating right. Maybe it’s our jobs and how desperate we are for that raise and promotion so that we can finally start saving some money for a bigger house that we think we need. Or maybe it’s the car we want as we’ve become convinced that ours isn’t good enough or cool enough.

The point is that so much of our focus has become focused on what we have, what we don’t, how we feel, what we think of it all.

And all the time our every thought in mind remains affixed on us.

Proving then that we delight not in the Lord but in ourselves. A fact proven even easier in light of all we live for anymore. Indeed, take a second or two sometime today and really stop to think about what all it is that your heart desires. What are the things that you’re striving for, trying to achieve, hoping to accomplish? What plans are you making and what is the goal toward which they have you walking? Is it something in/of this world?

Chances are it is because the simple fact has always been that, again since seeing is believing, we know only to believe in only what we see.

And sadly, what signifies the need for this offer of a heart replacement is that we’ve unfortunately found so much success and comfort in seeking for only all that we can see that we’re all but terrified of living life any differently.

After all, we’ve achieved and accomplished and amassed all this stuff.

Losing it or letting it go is the last thing that ever seemed like a hope in all these years we’ve spent hoping to get it.

And so we don’t understand it. We can’t make sense of His call to lay it down, let it go. We shudder at His suggestion that we take up our crosses, feel absolutely terrified as we come to find that it’s not a suggestion at all but rather an expectation. Why? Because again, this version of life we’ve come to live is one in which having things has long been the goal. And we’ve, because of that goal, come to spend all but all our time focused on all these things we’ve hoped to find or feel in life.

Are we just supposed to chalk it all up as a gross misunderstanding? A waste of time? A gigantic mistake?

Well, yeah.

Because, well, it was. It is. It always has been. Every life ever lived has spent at least some time focused on something that didn’t matter. Well, that part could be debated as there was at least One life that was lived that was lived not for this world but rather to save those in this world from their having given their lives to living in, of, for, from this world. And there have been others who’ve too found themselves welcomed by God at the end of what was said to have been a life in which they sought only His delight.

But as for the rest of us, no, no we suck at this whole idea of taking our delight in God and seeking then to live a life that satisfies Him rather than ourselves.

Friends, that’s why we need this here replacement!

It’s because, if we’re being honest, we really are too far gone. We really have messed too much up. We all have truly spent entirely too much time, effort and energy upon the craving of things in this world, so much in fact that this world has become our hope, our goal, our plan, our dream, our desire.

This world has become our everything.

And simply put, God won’t compete with that because He simply shouldn’t have to.

No, Christ endured that misery on the cross to help us see that we are just that lost, both to be worthy of that kind of suffering and that proven in how we cheered it on.

Yeah, we’re too far gone.

And so healing and repair are pretty much off the table. Rather He now just offers us a brand new heart and thus a fresh start at what becomes a way of life so very different from the one we’ve all lived that there grows this ongoing excitement to distance ourselves from all that we’ve long lived to only bring near and hold tight. And I’m not saying that this replacement happens over night as, again, I’m still struggling through it myself.

But friends, such is both the patience of God and the redemption of us!

It’s something proven in the process of sanctification whereby He removes from us our hearts of stone, laden down with worldly hopes and hardened to even the existence of other things in His helping us to change what we focus on, what we worry about, what we give our time, effort and energy toward. And yeah, it’s bound to be a lot of change because, well, His Way isn’t our way.

In fact, He who is the Way came to die to our way so that we could that our way was the death that He’d always said it was!

We’ve just proven to be such slow learners that we’ve, over time, learned just about everything else.

Indeed, every life that’s being lived in this world has some sort of interest or intrigue, devotion or desire to something or someone in this world. And again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as we are called to love others and be good stewards and even enjoy our lot in life, being always appreciative of the many gifts and blessings He sends. But the problem is that nothing here should have ever taken on a higher degree of importance than He.

And if we can’t say that it hasn’t, then we too are in need of this replacement.

And that’s because over time our hearts have grown to so fear change that we’ll really never welcome it. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t those things that we experience in life that do inspire us to change. Again, have yourself a kidney stone and you’ll readily change whatever you need to avoid that misery! But see, that’s kind of the point too. It’s that so often in life we’ll only change or agree to lose something if there’s pain or misery involved.

Because we don’t like pain. We seek to always avoid misery.

And in a world in which gaining is the goal, losing is then seen as misery.

So we avoid it. But friends, in this case our avoiding loss for the sake of the misery we assume it to mean only means that we’re having to avoid Him. All because the simple fact is that He never once called us to live these lives like this. No, He called us to be holy, to seek righteousness, to love justice, to walk humbly with He who we then see as our God and seek to glory.

But we can’t say that we’ve done those things, can we?

That’s why He’s just boiled it down to replacing. It’s because there’s really not much left of us to try and fix. Rather it’s gotten to the point in which it’s just better off to start over, hit refresh, give us new hearts and teach us with them to desire new things.

Things that will finally help us to accomplish His calling us to store up for ourselves treasures in Heaven rather than storage lockers.

Friends, my point is that we spend so much time in life thinking about where we’re living it and how we might make it more comfortable, more enjoyable, more successful and/or impressive. And this has caused us to focus on what we can see, what we can hear, how it all makes us feel. And thus the commonest goal of life as lived in this world is to have things that make us feel good, look good, seem special and/or important.

And all of these things, thoughts, theories have taken on so much gravity thanks to the sheer amount of time, effort and energy that we’ve given them that we don’t know how to give Him anything.

Because our hearts have become hardened to believing that hope only exists inside what we see and how we feel.

This is why He offers us new hearts, replacements given in place of the old ones that had become only a place in which this place became all that mattered.

Thankfully He’s willing to do something so drastic as forgive us for such a lasting misunderstanding and did so by sending His Son to take our place. Question remains are we willing to let Him?

Are we willing to lay down our lives and let Him provide us new hearts?

He will but it means we lose.

Guess I’ve just spent so much time inside myself that I’m finally curious as to the life I’ve missed doing so. And I don’t personally want to miss a better life anymore.

Do you?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold