Day 4187 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Acts 1:8 NIV

Madness, meet meaning.

For there is always some reason as to all the Lord does and it typically has something for us to do in light of it having been done. And, well, when it comes to the story of our salvation and the glory of the sacrifice given in order to make it happen, that reason cannot be what we all seem to always be able to still assume most reasons might be. Because sadly we’ve all come upon this confusion in life that’s a delusion of mind in which we all seem always to find that everything that happens to us must thus be all about us.

We’re just selfish like that.

But the problem is that creation is a really big map and it’s made of so many others, sisters and brothers, who may still be walking according to the map of life we’ve all been handed by a world that’s been handed over to the power of sin and the lord thereof. Yes, God has given man over to our lesser desires for everything, well, lesser. And, well, as the earth is lower than the Heavens and so too are we heathens lower then than who we were created to be, so too through Him shall we see a vast measure of things that are not what they ought to be.

And we’ll probably learn to want plenty of those things that shouldn’t be what they’ve so sadly become.

And it’s within this life given endlessly to want that we become they who are a people in need of salvation from what then become lives lived to serve and soothe these replacement gods that we hold both in our hands and in our heads that, from there, lead us to always thinking only about what more we might get our hands on. And in a world filled with so much with which to fill the hand, the head, the heart, it’s only a matter of time before pretty much everything falls apart.

Issue is that we’ve already arrived at that time, did so a couple thousand years ago now, and now have then what is this story of our salvation as was written well before our lives began to become what have been but another lost to lust for all that is under the sun.

For despite His having given His life to help us better understand how we ought to live ours, we’ve all still lived ours in love and lust and they for all that’s only in and of.

Only one of which we were ever even created to be.

The other one that we chose still to become which is the choice that begat His choosing to send the Son.

Yes, God made the way for our to be saved from our sins as have come from not only living in the world but more so living of the world. And He made this way, became this Way way before our lives started and we then started to live them wrongly.

All because He knew then and knows still that wrong is sadly our inherent tendency as, well, everyone does it. Granted, some more than others. But still, the entire backdrop of Calvary is that we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and God, who is rich in glory, determined to thus extend unto us the forgiveness we need not by simply negotiating with our inherited sinfulness but rather by sending His Son to atone for the sins of all of us.

Yes, “we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6

Thus the iniquity of us all, which, being that of all of us, there sure was/is a lot, was all atoned for within Christ’s having given Himself over to the taking up of a sinner’s cross and paying the debt of a sinful life lost on the behalf of all those who’d lived a sinful life, a payment only He could make because He didn’t live a sinful life.

For there could be no other affordance of the atonement we all need for all of our sins than the merciful sacrifice of a spotless Lamb who gave their life in place of ours in what is that place that was ours.

Or still is depending upon where we now stand upon the line that His life drew in the sand that is time that is, in case you can’t feel it yet, running out.

Indeed, maybe it’s just me but the days seem to be getting shorter and going quicker and I just can’t help but then know in my bones that we’re getting closer to His coming as close as He may ever again be for some.

And the idea that there are those who are leaving this world every moment of every day without any assurance as to where they’re going nor the hope of what awaits (a hope that none of us might have if we have not a knowledge of Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, a personal relationship that this faith is meant to be), that idea just cannot be.

Yet so often here we sit still worried about our lives, our problems, our priorities, our plans, our desires, our comforts, our worries, our fears, our hesitation to do anything other than either everything we want or simply all that everyone else has already chosen.

We’ve all become about near frozen in what are lives in which our feet only know to always go the direction that everyone else has gone and our mouths know then only to say whatever is it that our ears have heard from those we’ve chosen to listen to saying they know the way to whatever they think this life is meant to be.

Problem is that such things were never for man to determine nor decide nor act if we alone know in life.

Because it’s pretty stinking obvious that we all know next to nothing about life having lived ours so wrong as we have and still living it wrong even though we know we have!

Why then do we continue to place our trust in men? Why do we then spend so much time worried about whatever it is that other people are doing? Why do we even spend all the time we do worried about whatever it is that we’re doing or want to?

Is this life truly all about us?

And, having all of us lived as if it was, haven’t we yet failed and fallen short of more than enough of everything better that we know better by now?

Sadly, looking around, seems the answer’s pretty clear. And the answer is that no, we don’t seem to know just how low it is that we’ve all down here come to live. Rather it’s a glaring reality that we all really still have no idea what we’re doing and somehow a decreasing interest in ever acting again as if we even care to try to find one.

A truth so violently clear to see inside who it is that we all seem to see fit still to live in what sadly remain these versions of life that are still vastly more worried about all that we can fit within them and that because we’re all mostly still trying only to make sure that our lives fit here.

Why?

Have we forgotten that we’ve someplace else to be? Or have we simply perhaps never known of this other promise given us in eternity?

Again, looking around at how so many continue living their lives, myself included sometimes, it’s pretty clear that all of us have plenty of work to do in that whole “go and sell all you and give to the poor and then come and follow me department.”

A fact proven in that so much of what we spend our time doing is something that the world either wants us to do or has inspired us to try.

But, if we are in Christ and He then in us, then why does this world have any importance left to us?

Friends, in Him this world is meant to become but our office in which we do the work He’s given us with the unknowable deadline He’s sat before us of which is the time in which He’s coming back to find those who are His as will be known from the fruit they’ve sown inside what is a soul eager, desperate, willing to stinking die if it means someone else might know of the promise of an eternal life.

A willingness basically missing amongst man.

Which is why we’re, in Him, called to be different. To be strange. To exist as strangers in a strange land thinking us strange because we become a few who choose to stop living as if this world is our prize nor even these lives then our own. To walk this world all alone, broken, empty, giving and kind all because that is who He is and what He did and all He calls us all to try.

To follow Him and to be then His hands and feet carrying His message to those who need it and giving them as much of it, of us as we possibly can.

This is the mission.

To go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel of Christ Jesus who came to free us from what have been, sadly still are, lives lived in sin. To tell everyone, even that fool looking back at us in the mirror every morning, that we’re not meant to be as of this world as we daily remain. To strike blows to our bodies so that they become slaves of Him rather than remaining slaves to sin so that we can be personal examples of the samples of salvation that we’ve found in Him.

Yes, we’re all just beggars looking for bread.

And, well, it’s our job then as those who know Him to tell the rest of them where to find the kind that doesn’t leave us hungry again.

But is that what we’re doing?

Or, as is clearly more common, are we still just worrying mostly about trying to make people happy? Sure, the Gospel should make us all happy as it’s, again, the story of the salvation of all of us thereby granting all of us freedom from our having to figure out a way to pay the debt we all owe but can’t none of us afford, thus grace proving itself the free gift given by His having taken our place and paying said debt with His life.

What greater gift can we ever possibly hope to get than that someone else would lay down their life so that we needn’t die?

Sure, we all still will as it’s now just a part of life thanks to our having lived our lives so far from right.

But in Him we don’t have to do it twice!

The heartbreak should be found in our finding out that in His Word it really does say that many a man will die a second death and that it will last forever in the unending torture that is an eternity spent outside the vicinity of He who loves us so much that He did give His life for us.

That place that awaits the many upon the wide, and unwilling to leave it behind, it’s called hell and it exists because sin does not exist in Him and is then not welcome near Him either.

After all, why would God ever welcome into Heaven those who spend their lives denying it there?

For ‘twas the same as slain His Son.

And, well, while He might offer us forgiveness for having been so blind, you can only give sight to those who have the ability to see that they can’t see.

And, having had our eyes opened to that fact, we’re now the ones tasked with going into all the world and telling everyone we meet all we’ve come to see now that He’s opened our eyes and changed our lives.

But again, is that what we’re doing or are we still using all these excuses to keep from it?

Excuses like ‘I’m too young’ or ‘I don’t know what to say’ or ‘I’m afraid that my friends will turn away’?

Truth is that they’ve all been used before but we shouldn’t really be too surprised that they’re not going to work as passible answers to that question He asks when He returns and expects to find that we’ve done something with the treasure entrusted to us.

That’s the whole point of the Parable of the Talents.

The master in that story entrusted to his servants a part of his wealth and asked them, or at least expected them, to put it to work while he was off on this journey he had to take. Gave one servant five talents, another two, and the third one received one. And when he returned from his trip he called them all forward and found out what they’d done with the means that he’d given them.

The servants who had been given the five talents and the two talents came and gave him double what he’d entrusted to them having put them to work while the master was gone. Those two who’d earned double what they’d received by having chosen to dare to risk their master’s wealth, and doing so wisely, they, having pleased their master were invited to “come and share the master’s happiness.”

The third who’d been given the one chose instead to go a hide it because he was afraid of losing it knowing that his master was a hard man to please.

And so when the third was called forward he gave his master back the lone talent that he’d been given.

Along with nothing more.

All because he, in fear, chose to hide what his master had entrusted to him, thus keeping it all to himself so as to ensure that none of it would be lost.

And I love this story because it’s called the Parable of the Talents, a talent being both a measure of wealth (such as gold in this example) but also our understanding of our own abilities and skills and strengths. And I love it so much because the point is that it doesn’t matter how much we have, as is sadly what this world’s taught us to spend the most of our time worrying about and comparing ourselves over, but rather what we do with however much or little we’ve been given.

It’s about another trusting us with something in what is a belief that we’ll be wise enough to make good use of it. That we’ll be smart enough to do something with it. That we’d be bold enough to risk it, willing perhaps to lose it, all in an effort to try and please He who’s given it.

And indeed, God’s given us all talents, skills, abilities with which we can undertake the work of going into all the world and speaking the Name of Christ.

And it doesn’t matter what your talent may be or how much of it you may feel that you’ve been given whenever compared to another. For the Master isn’t going to ask us why we didn’t earn five when we’d only been given two. He’s rather returning to find out what we’ve done with what He’s given us, not what He gave another as that’s between Him and them.

Thus all of this comparison we’re always so busy with is nothing but a distraction from our doing whatever we can with however much we have.

Question is how much do we have and what are we doing with it?

The answer to the first is all we’ll ever need as God has seen fit to give us everything we need in Christ.

What then are we doing with our knowledge of Him and the work He did?

Are we spreading it out trying to reach as many as we might and earn hopefully as many as we can over to Him? Are we putting it into our churches trying to help those in them grow in Him even more? Are we giving some of it to the poor and doing so not seeking glory for ourselves but rather just giving them some of what He gave us so that they can see the love that He has for us and them?

Or are we keeping our knowledge and hope and belief in Jesus to ourselves as if He’s so hard to please that we think we’re better off to risk nothing of what He’s given but rather to hide it inside so that we have it all left to give Him back whenever He comes back and asks what it is that we’ve been up to?

Friends, that Jesus gave His body over to be brutally tortured kind of proves that God’s not really worried about whatever it is that we might lose within the doing as He put us here to do.

No, I’m pretty sure He’s far more interested in whatever it is that we do with whatever it is that He’s given us to do it with.

And the call is the same for all:

Go into all the world and make disciples of more.

Fishers of men.

That’s what pleases Him. That’s what He’s looking for. It’s not how many Bible verses we know or our attendance record on Sunday morning. It’s not how many rears we can put in seats or how many tickets we sell to hear us speak. It’s not the number of those we win to the Lord but rather that our having been won to the Lord has left us unwilling, unable even to keep the hope we have in Him all to ourselves.

Will we sound weird to those who think our faith foolish? You bet. Will we anger, aggravate, agitate, annoy those who don’t like the message of the cross? Absolutely. Will we offend? Will we lose friends? Will we love comfort? Will we lose money? Will we lose time? Will we lose possessions or plans or priorities?

All the above.

We might, as some, even come to lose our lives in our giving them unto following behind Him who is coming back to see what we’ve been doing while He’s been gone.

What then will we have left to give? Everything He gave us? Or perhaps nothing to show despite our having tried?

Which do we think will prove to have the chance to please Him:

Keeping His message to ourselves out of fear of those who might hear it not liking it, not liking us? Or shouting from rooftops that we know Jesus and He loves all of us even if we lose everything we have in doing so?

The point is that He’s given us all the power and ability and opportunity to be His messengers in a world that really needs to hear His message. That’s why He left us, it was to send us back the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability, the talent to take the gold that is the Gospel and put it to work.

That’s the very meaning of this life!

Problem is that very few ever go mad enough to find that out and fewer still are crazy enough to live it out.

Because it is hard. It is scary. It is awkward.

So what?

None of those are reason to refuse to be who He created us to be and so nor then are they excuses to refuse to do what He calls us to.

We can still refuse. We can still live in fear. We can still choose to keep His truth all to ourselves.

But the thing is that He died for all of us, not just us.

And so if we still think that all this life means, all our faith means is only all about us, we might not know Him like we think we do.

And if we don’t then He might just say that He doesn’t know us too.

After all, the whole purpose of the Gospel is for us to come to know Christ as our Lord and Savior and then to help others know that He’s their King also.

Is that what we’re here to do or are we still hiding the truth He’s given us to share and thus from the life He’s called us to live?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold