Day 4188 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 2:4 NIV

Madness, meaning, meet meekness.

For the path ahead of us is not one for the strong among us nor the wise beside us nor the boldness or bravery within us. Rather the combination of the sheer narrowness of the path which is the Way and the true nearness of what is the Day in which the Way will return, it’s become entirely too lean for a people of such pride to learn. And so instead this path, this Way, it, He asks we lean upon He who was and who is and who is to come to be the One to take the spotlight within our lives as we then live them for Him who died back then for us.

A gift given unto all but sadly still one that only changes few.

At least in the way that it was intended to.

And that’s because the hope of Heaven is held inside our humility. The promise of eternity enters humanity through hearts humbled unto at first seeing their fragility as is founded upon our every foolishness and folly. The glory of grace as was given us in that place that was our grave, it’s something that can only save whenever we’re at first helped to see our need of such salvation. But once it does, oh, then everything changes.

Everything.

But aside from all the alterations He begins to make in our lives, in our hearts, in our minds and all we hold in our hands and dream of on our beds, perhaps the most meaningful changes of all are those He makes within our words and what we say and why it’s said.

For in Him we begin to lose this common agreement to talk of such things as acceptance and appeasement as are so clearly sought still by most in what are their worldly iteration. And that’s because in Him we become more and more aware of so much of all we here see and hear that, while sounding and/or seeming so close to right, it’s only a danger that will achieve most here being left.

And that outside of Heaven then.

When?

Upon that day when He who is the Way returns unto this place but to gather up those who by then have become His as can only happen by their being helped to see that thus far they haven’t been.

For one can only become something they’re not if at first they’re made aware of what they are alongside whatever reasons they may need to finally agree to fully see that who they are isn’t at all what any at all should ever want to be.

That’s why He came the first time. Indeed, the life of Christ was lived in such a way to help us see the way we’d been living for what it was, sadly for most still is. It was to open our eyes to the loss of our hearts, the misplacing of our minds as has come upon us all having all of us given nearly all of them both (heart and mind) over to learning so much in and of this life as has been lived by all of us both in, yes, but sadly even more so of this world.

Indeed, Jesus came to show us just how far we’d fallen away from the Way in which God intended us to live, created us to live, by being the Way who walked the way that none of us have with what was a cross upon His back and a willingness to endure it within His soul. All so that we could come to know that we’re the ones who would have stood in that crowd and mocked and jeered and cheered as He was beaten and broken and betrayed.

Yes, we do love our betrayals down here, do we not?

Problem is that aside from such exciting and entertaining plot twists within the movies and motives of holly’s weirdness, we most of us still can’t seem to see that the same is playing out within us.

That we’ve all been living lives betraying ourselves and their hopes of more life.

All because satan has blinded the eyes of nonbelievers so that they cannot anymore seem to see the utter simplicity to the story of our having all been saved and set free.

And he’s done such a great job that both all of us have been blind in terms of belief in our being better and living the same in the hope of our then living forever and, sadly, we’re amongst a truly great many who so clearly still are. Every single day, it’s sadly safe to say, that the majority of those we walk amongst and who talk against our doing so so strangely as they may perceive we might, they’re all lost within the night that is this life that is lived without the love of the Christ.

Not that He’s not offered it to them for He took that cross for us all.

No, it’s just that the majority of those here haven’t yet decided to turn their ear to the truth that they know would change their life.

Why?

Because we don’t want our lives changed. We’ve all given entirely too much time, effort, energy into our becoming everything we’ve wanted to be. For that’s the version of life they sell us down here. That the ultimate goal of this life we know is to live it doing whatever we want. Whether it be fame or fortune, friendships or fun, this world offers us all, every single one, every single thing that nearly everyone else says we need and shows we should.

And the devil sure paints it up all nice and good by convincing us all that it’s all just that, nice and good.

And whenever we become so convinced as we’ve all became that everything that we do and have and want and think is plenty okay if not actually, actively everything that everyone else says is the very best we could hold or hope or hope to be, it’s only a matter of time until we again become all but forever blind to the belief of life as was lived by Christ and can now only be lived in Christ.

Yes, the truth of this life is that none of us will know anything of life unless and until we ourselves come to know Christ as the Lord and Savior He lived and died to be.

For there remains no other Name given under Heaven unto we heathen by which and through whom we must be saved.

Problem remains that most of us, all in some ways, we’re still fighting against this gift that is humility as, to our pride, it just seems and sounds so silly that surely it can’t be so needed.

I mean, can’t there be some other option along the path to Heaven that doesn’t include our so dying to ourselves that we really do go and sell all we have and all we are all so that we don’t have anything left to get in the way of our finally coming to become all He at first created us to be?

Well, no. There simply is no other way than our getting rid of everything and letting the same then go as this life we’ve known, or the version of which we’ve settled for so falling in love with that we now loathe the call to let it go (and that even in the promised exchange for life eternal), it’s come to so utterly define us that there is no defense against His dying.

For that Jesus died to atone for our sins gives a gift that can only be accepted should we begin, in Him, repenting of them.

Honestly, for as much as our salvation is found in no one else, so too is there no one else who must change than whoever it is that we’ve become who became so lost, so estranged that the very God of Heaven humbled even Himself in the coming down to the taking up of a sinner’s cross to help us see both how much we’ve lost of our hearts, our souls, ourselves and thus too just how lost we are.

With the hope of it all being that lost becomes what we were.

But again my friends, one can only come to see how lost they are through the hope that is humility.

And that’s why He calls us all to walk in meekness.

What is meekness?

It’s “the quality or state of being meek.” No duh, huh? So then what is meek? Well, it’s “a mild, moderate, humble, or submissive quality” one seen inside Christianity in what is specifically “a humble attitude that expresses itself in the patient endurance of offenses.” It’s gentleness. It’s something seen inside our giving of the mercy that’s been given unto us as is offered unto all those who offend us or hurt us or hate us. It’s a version of self-control that learns to know that as vengeance is the Lord’s, kindness is then ours.

In many ways meekness is weakness, at least in terms of how the world expects us all to live.

For to be meek is to do things such as turning the other cheek and giving whatever we have to those who may be in need. Problem is that in our pride we hear such things and think they mean that we’re supposed to become what are basically doormats or so personally impoverished that we’ve nothing by which to keep ourselves going.

And, well, yeah, that is kind of the point!

Because, well, we are doormats over which this world is supposed to walk whenever they hear us talk and find within our words the seeds of truth that leave them freed from a life of sin and headed then toward their share in our hope of the home that’s been offered unto all. We are here to be nothing more than messengers carrying a strange message to a people who will thus think we’re strange because of all we come to say.

But we’ll do it anyway because we, in Christ, become cognizant of the version of life that we’re promised to live with Him and, in that hope that is our home that is held inside of Heaven, we come to want for everyone else to be there too.

Why?

Because He does.

Indeed, we’re told plain that God wants for none to perish but rather for all to come unto repentance wherein we’ll finally find salvation from sins. For, again, you can’t really be saved from anything you won’t get rid of. That’s like breaking into prison or, having just been in fender-bender, putting it reverse and then doing it all over again. It would be like you’re taking a hike through the woods and you accidentally step on a bear-trap. You finally get free from the thing only to stand there and stomp back down on it again.

That’s just stupid.

But unfortunately such is the version of life we’ve all found the tendency to live.

Because, again, we don’t want to change. We want to keep doing the very same things. Why? Because those things have achieved for us a pretty decent life. Not perfect by any means, but in this place, in this time, yeah, our lives are all going pretty well. And so, well, why then change anything?

Especially to the tune of His call to give all we know away and endure His flipping our lives upside down and doing everything short of physically picking us up and shaking the stupid out?

No, that’s why this world finds this faith so foolish. It’s because it’s a belief in the importance of meekness rather than pride. It’s a hope housed inside of humility instead of arrogance. It’s something that does honestly look like weakness to a people who believe this life is not but our time to do whatever we either can or believe we simply have to in order to have or be all we want to.

This faith is basically a belief that is so different from what this world’s taught us to believe that, again, Jesus came down here to literally die in and to our way of life so that we could all see that our way of life only has us deserving to die.

And make no mistake, we all will!

Problem is that the world keeps shoving this idea down our throats that either maybe we won’t or that since we will we should at least get our fill of all our thrills as are to be paid in bills that won’t come due within this life.

Yep, the majority of people here are writing checks their souls won’t be able to cash.

And while Jesus came to change that, He can only change whatever we agree to have changed.

Thus change is basically the whole point of the whole deal.

It’s just that in this world change is considered failure. It’s believed to be something someone has to do because they cannot do whatever it was that they were trying to. It’s seen as a weakness won within someone’s inabilities or missed opportunities or misunderstandings. Change looks to us as something of a loss of the version of life we were obviously trying to find before we broke down and gave up trying to find it anymore.

Change is for losers who can’t or won’t do whatever it takes to take from this life in this world whatever it is that they want.

And what becomes so strange about this faith is that it helps us to pretty much find honor in being a loser.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I’m personally fine with nobody here thinking highly of me. I’m cool with the fact that the way I’m living my life is probably highly unimpressive to most. I really kind of love the idea that most here would think I’m a joke, a fool, a freak. In fact I really love the idea that I just don’t fit in anymore and thus probably look like a loser to all of those who are still trying so very hard to live that version of life that has them thinking that the goal of this life is to fit in within the one place in which we’re all promised to lose it.

Maybe that means I’ve lost it.

And indeed, I’d agree that I have. Because, yeah, I have lost it. I’ve lost a lot in fact. I’ve lost my interest in pleasing people. I’ve lost my interest in talking about the petty and pointless things that people talk about. I’ve lost my willingness to waste my time trying to seem or sound impressive. Lost my willingness to be impressed with all this world thinks is important or special or valuable.

I’ve in fact even lost my ability to believe in value in terms in which I once used to. For, perhaps like you, I once stored around myself things of increasing value, collectibles and such, with pretty much the only reason being that I could perhaps sell them someday and make a bunch of money doing so. I actually ended up selling just about all of it and didn’t probably make all that much off of it after He changed my life by helping me see that there’s more to life than money and material.

And too that I can’t serve both them and Him.

Something that will really make you sound like a loser to all those many who think life mainly about being a millionaire who lives in a mansion with a billion friends and followers.

I don’t want any of that. Because, honestly, anymore all that stuff is so fake and faked that is means nothing.

But you know what does mean something?

This opportunity we have to tell others about Jesus. The sharing of the Gospel which freed us. The helping Him to open eyes and change the lives of those who are still lost in the living of lives that only deserve to die. The chance to change ourselves in what then become lives that find us willing to lose, to hurt, to give, to walk away. The chance to walk forward leaving behind all we’ve come to know in life that He helps us to know isn’t life.

That’s maybe one of the biggest things that’s changed in my mind. For, like I said above, I used to collect so much stuff for the worldly-shared estimated value thereof. And to be honest, I have stuff now that I’ve hung on my walls and sat on bookshelves. But it’s no longer about the worldly-considered value thereof but rather my appreciation thereof. It’s about my appreciating the few things, and slimming at that, that God’s given me the ability to appreciate, to enjoy, to be thankful for.

Because there’s a humility found in being thankful for what we have, for who we are, for where we are and why we’re here.

It’s just that said humility is still largely lost in and on this humanity.

Which is why we’re here with what is a heart that’s been made new that is willing, no, adamant to share the News.

What news?

That Jesus came once to die for our sins and that He’s plans to come again to take us home from this hole in which we’re now supposed to live only to leave everything behind not begrudgingly but thankfully. Yes, these lives are but our times in which we can find the audacity to hold onto everything here so very loosely that we’ll one day have no idea when all of it’s finally gone.

That’s the song we get to sing. That’s the News we get to break. That’s the hope we get to bring!

That this life is passing by and that we don’t have to fear our losing it because He who came to find us won’t lose us or leave us behind.

Does that make any sense to those lost in self and sensuality and success and the sheer stupidity that it is to abide by the definitions of those given us from the world around us?

Probably not.

Does it matter anymore if we sound like idiots to those who think that believing in Jesus is foolish?

Not at all.

Matters so little in fact that in Him we’ll come to love sounding and looking foolish. We’ll learn to appreciate the chances we’re given to show just how weak and meek we really are. We will grow to absolutely adore every single opportunity we’ve left to share that shows the world just how little we care to keep living as if life is only lived here.

No, in Him we’re now set free from mere human rules and tired cultural expectations. We don’t speak in vocabulary that sounds cool or work in vocations that this world finds impressive. Rather we speak in the language of hope and work only toward our getting to finally go home. We live according to His rules and seek to please only His expectations.

And yeah, doing so will make us seem strange to most. But that’s okay because we’re not here to please people as people cannot open the gates to Heaven and let us in.

Only He can.

And that we know that He has, well, how could that not change everything?

After all, was that not what He said His point and purpose was? To make all things new? And, well, what then could be more new than our having become so changed that even the words we say are spoken in hope and toward the same rather than leaving them so unchanged that they mean nothing?

Indeed, so much of what this world says and does are but empty deeds and even hollower words. Will they like hearing that? No.

Do we have to care or worry about what they may or may not do to us because they don’t?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold