Day 4210 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 37:16 NIV

Less is less

Just of nothing that we’ll want and even less of all we’ll need. For with less exists this opportunity of humility coming along and convincing us to keep going along what is the eternal path that’s paved in devotion and its ability to keep ever-lit this raging fire that lives this life through these eyes that see finally these lies for the lies they are rather than the lives we thought we wanted. And indeed, within this world we are surrounded by so many things that can become unto us the seeds which grow this humility as every single day spent here we see something else that someone else says we need that, only through humility, can we see we not only don’t really need but actually quite clearly leads down a road we don’t want to travel on anymore.

And that because, contrary to common confusion, not all roads lead to Heaven.

In fact there’s only one and it was carved by He who came to carry a cross upon which a life He lost as was lain down willingly so as to uphold the righteous will of God both finally and therefore fully as He did what none other had and what still few if any care to even try. And why? Because we don’t know how. And on top of that, well, we can’t.

At least in certain respects.

What I mean is that we can’t physically endure what He did on our behalf. And the point of His death, burial and resurrection is that He knew that. He knew that we couldn’t both satisfy the wage we’ve won within the many sins we’ve loved as the highly wicked people we’ve become, seeing as how said wage is death, and too go on to live still on the other side. And that because, well, we’ve but one death to give and, once it’s here given, we’re then out of life to live.

We haven’t within ourselves the power, the ability, the authority to resurrect ourselves. No, rather when we die, we stay dead.

Why?

Because we’ve sinned against Him endlessly and thus so too should the punishment met be met endlessly.

It’s simple mathematics.

If one sin is one death, because all sin wins said wage, then we’ve truly become wealthy in death because, let’s be honest, none of us have sinned just once. None of us have sinned even but once a day nor once an hour. No, rather we’ve all shown our power to prove everything He never intended for us to be nor desired for us to become every minute of every day as we all have lived in friendly accord with what is this place that has taught us all, and taught us well, how to ignore Him, refuse Him, reject Him, deny Him, debate Him, forsake Him, forget Him and forge within what’s been an entire way of life spent running from the light into the dark.

All because we think that the shadows will help to hide all the messed up things we know deep down that we’ve done in life.

And sure, in this world such things as closets exist and, yes, for the most part most folks keep all their skeletons in them of all the dead men they’ve chosen to be within all the sins they’ve chosen to chase.

Or at least that’s the way it used to be.

And I for one don’t really know whether to take it as something to be seen as fortunately or unfortunately but the clear reality is that going are the days in which we even walked and talked and lived in that way as anymore more and more seem more willing than ever before to wear their wickedness upon their sleeve as if it’s some kind of badge of honor to walk in such horror as all we see so commonly anymore within what’s become a world so vastly wicked that, yeah, light is put for dark and wrong is then considered right.

He said these days would come, and yet somehow we still seem a society more dumb than not as to the outcome He also promised would come.

One that will go only one of two ways, one of which will work out for our best whilst the other, well, the other.

Problem is that anymore it seems we’ve somehow less time than ever before with which to worry about such warnings. Rather most days find us doing still so many things that we’ll one day be proven to have always known better than to have kept doing. And, if having done those wrongs for just so long that we run out of time within this life, so too shall we run out of life.

Guess the issue is that we’re all quite easily convinced that we’ve all plenty of life left seeing as how, well, we’re still here in what’s thus far proven an entirely unbroken record of our waking up within this world. For example, today is my 14,118th day on this earth living this life. That’s a pretty big number of what’s thus something that I’ve done or found or felt for so very long that I’ve every reason to imagine that the streak will continue.

After all, the streak of my being here has managed to continue for 14,117 days so far.

Easy then to see how we can easily come to assume that such a large number representing a long life will continue to increase the both.

And maybe it will.

Maybe at some point I’ll live what my mom is living starting this morning and there awaken to my 21,442nd day. Or maybe even the day my dad has been given today, his 23,422nd. Or perhaps even that of she who was considered the oldest person to have ever lived who lived for a grand sum of 42,592 days. Lady was born in August of 1909 and died in April of 2026. That’s 116 years, 223 days.

That’s a lot of life.

And indeed, maybe we all have that much time to look forward to. And sure, if that were the case then I’m not even a third of the way done down here.

A thought that literally terrifies me!

But my point is that, yeah, we’ve all lived a lot of life thus far and that amount has left us widely able to assume that living we’ll continue to do. And indeed, we will, but only until we won’t. And I know this because there’ve been but three men who’ve managed to leave this world alive. And, well, let’s just say that we’re not any of us anywhere near righteous enough to have any reason to imagine that the same could someday be said of us. No, instead all of us have sinned and fallen short then of the glory of God in what have been lives that have thus been spent as if we’re not going to God.

In fact, all of us have said things, done things, thought things that have shown that we’ve, at times at least, not even cared to live as if there were a God.

And it’s because of that that we’re all promised to die.

Only question is will we do it twice with the second lasting forever?

Because, again, God’s already proven Himself to be true to His Word seeing as how “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

And so we’ve then every reason to imagine that everything else He’s said will also come true. Including this little jewel:

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Revelation 21:8

See, second death.

And now I don’t know about you and since I’m not living your life nor you living mine I can’t speak for you nor you me but as for me, well, I’m not really all that able to become at all excited about dying twice. Once, yeah. In fact as the world goes the way the world’s so clearly going, I’m finding the first one more and more exciting all the time. But that’s simply because I’ve the hope that Christ knows me as I’m trying daily to know Him more and help more know of Him too.

That’s basically the main, if not only, reason that I do this that I do every day.

It’s because I want that hope that this ain’t my home but that rather I’ve some treasure stored elsewhere waiting for me to leave here where I feel less and less at home every single day in what is a life that I myself have lived plenty of different ways. Many of which I came to hate so much that I too have since died to who I used to be as the person who used to live the lives that I don’t live no more.

I’ve changed a lot over the years, so much so that even old friends literally cannot recognize me anymore.

And yet I find most days that I fear that I’ve not changed nearly enough. Why? Because still I do things that are simply messed up. Still I slip up and say a word that I’ve long since determined I don’t like the sound of. Or I’ll treat someone else as if they’re more an enemy rather than a fellow child of God. Or I’ll give entirely too much of my time and attention to things of this world.

I do that one all the time.

Problem is that we all do. In fact we’ve all let so much of this world into our eyes and ears and hearts and minds and thus into our lives that we’d be hard pressed to find that line where this world ends and we begin. Again, we’ve all been here long enough to have learned enough about the way of life that we can, and most do, live that we’ve in fact come to love the same.

Which is why most consider still the message of the cross to be foolishness.

It’s because we’ve entirely too much we like, even more we love, in and about these lives we’re living to even consider the idea that we lay them down. We’ve too much that we love in these lives and about how we live them to imagine letting much if anything in them, of them, about them go. It makes absolutely no sense to us to walk away from what we enjoy, from what we appreciate, from the freely given and thus easily found applause of people.

If anything, we’ve learned to live for the applause of people!

Why?

Because it makes us feel good about who we are and what we’re doing. It keeps us convinced that we’re doing something right and thus needn’t change anything in or about our lives. It frees us to keep doing whatever might please us. It allows us to continue focusing on ourselves and ensuring that we’re having fun and making friends and finding the fame in fortunes found in being found as those worthy of all such worldly praise and applause and approval.

Problem is that, while we might be rather attuned to how to please the court of public opinion, there’s another court we’re going to found in some day.

And that’s the one over which God presides.

And, well, seeing as how He sent Jesus to come remind us that pretty much everything we were doing was only everything He never wanted us to, no, I don’t imagine that we’ll fare quite so well within the court of His opinion.

After all, He sent His one and only Son to come and save us and, well, we killed Him!

Yeah, probably going to make for a, let’s just say, interesting get together someday.

But again, the problem is that that day wasn’t yesterday nor, for me at least, the 14,116 days prior to it either. And so we’ve all resorted always back to our almost reasonable assumption that our days here will keep coming which means, should they agree to do so, we’ve indeed plenty of time left in which to do a little more of whatever we want before we eventually clean ourselves up and get ready to leave.

My question is when will we determine to clean ourselves up and get ready to leave seeing as none of us know the day nor the hour upon which we will?

We just gonna hope we get lucky and guess right?

Is the distance between everlasting death and eternal life really worth relying our getting lucky and not getting it wrong?

Truth is that that’s basically what the world inspires us to do. To do as we please and ask for forgiveness only always after is our pattern. Problem being that we rarely, if ever, even ask for forgiveness. Rather we’ve all become so wealthy and accustomed to the ways of this world that we pretty much spend our every waking moment only doing whatever we want, thinking all the while that we needn’t be forgiven for any of it. No, we’re roundly convinced that we do no wrong.

Again, not sure how that will hold up in His court but I guess we’ll find out.

Again, my question is why we seem almost adamant to do so the hard way.

For the truth is that He’s made it easy. I mean He literally took our death for us, satisfied God’s wrath in His punishment upon that cross taken in our place. He gave His life so that we could see with our eyes that we might should at the very least highly consider maybe making some changes to ours.

After all, we’d all have been among that crowd cheering on His misery.

Yeah, that should open our eyes and inspire us to seriously take a good look at ourselves and figure out both how we got here and why we ever thought it was anywhere we wanted to be. For the truth is that, again, we’re all so worldly that we’ve come to think that the gift of forgiveness is foolishness. That mercy is meaningless. That salvation is needless. That Heaven is a place on earth found in those rare moments in which we feel good and have fun and make friends and find our fame and fortune.

That’s all that we seem to live for anymore.

Just more and more of all this world says we should want.

All because we’ve all become quite clearly convinced that more is more, less is less and that less is nothing we should ever even consider accepting considering how we’re surrounded always by something more this world continues to show is rather enjoyable.

His question is what will it profit a man to gain all the world and lose his soul.

And indeed, Jesus was offered that very deal. The devil led Him up this hill and there showed Him all the kingdoms of this earth and promised to give them all to Him if He’d only bow down and worship him.

Jesus refused.

We didn’t.

And that’s the difference.

It’s that all of us have taken that deal. All of have sought to have always more of all that’s here. All of us have become fans and friends of so many things that this world puts before us that we, again, would struggle to find any ghost of a line that might separate us from the world.

We are the world. The world is us. We’ve all become one and the same with this place that’s defined our ways and made our choices and given us our voices that we use to speak anymore rather boastfully about our vices. Indeed, we’re even to the point in the story in which we’re running low on shame and modesty.

And we don’t seem to mind it!

And, well, that’s the problem! It’s that we’re watching a society become always only more worldly, a people thus gaining more and more of this world at what none can seem to see might actually be the eventual expense of their souls.

Indeed, we don’t think of our souls much. Because, well, we think of ourselves too much. Almost all of life has all become all about what all we want, what all we like, what all we don’t. We’re each lost in these little worlds that are anymore being literally crafted to suit our every desire thanks to such things as ai acting as if a life coach always there to keep us ever convinced that everything we do is exactly what we ought to.

It isn’t.

No, rather the heart remains deceptive above all things and thus beyond cure. And yet we live in a world that tells us to listen to our hearts, to chase after our dreams, to set our sights on being whatever want to be, our desires on doing whatever we want to do and to never once turn around and reconsider any of it. We’re told that somewhere out there down here is waiting our best life.

Only problem is that every life lived here will end.

A massive problem to someday be proven when the vast majority of people are finally forced to look up and there only find that they will have lived their very best life. That they will have had their reward. That they will have used up their every hope upon their chance to have all the more that this world always offers us all.

And that they’ll thus have no best life left, no hope left, no reward left.

They’ll have spent it all in this world and thus show up before Him having won so much of this world that they’re turned away from eternal life because they either never learned or simply chose to forget that better is the little that the righteous have than the sum of everything had by the wicked.

And why is that?

Because the wicked have no life to look forward to. Rather, as that verse in Revelation promises, they’ve only the second death.

Guess the problem is that when you live, as we all have, in a fear of the first putting an end to all the fun, all the friends, all the wealth and work we’ve found or done in this life, we’ve not then the mind that’s able to consider the second. No, everyone here lives absolutely terrified of their one day losing their lives because all of us, at times, have loved our lives here so very much that taking up our crosses was as asinine a suggestion as has ever been suggested.

Only problem is it wasn’t a suggestion!

It was a promise.

We will all take up our crosses. All that’s left to be determined is how much death, or rather how many deaths we’ll find upon them.

For many the deaths will continue for eternity as they’re forced to leave behind someday all that ever mattered to them in this place in which they chose to waste what was their life’s best. For a few they’ll die only once and that for but a second before they’re invited unto eternal life having chosen to lose this one unto the love of the Father rather than the want for all that’s fallen.

It’s a choice we all have to make and indeed one we make every breath of every day:

Love our God or love this place.

His Word says we can’t do both and our pasts are all filled with evidence of which path we’ve chosen most often.

The question we need to ask, as was hinted at by He who came to make all things new, is whether or not we ever do anything new or do we continue to do everything the same way and for the same reason(s) that we always have?

Again, it’s easy to see the world’s answer.

Our only hope is only found if we’re found having someday a different answer to give.

And that because one day we’ll all want as little of what most will find an eternal supply of as we can possibly find.

For none of us should want as much of death as we’ve earned. Problem is very few seem interested in doing less of all that’s earned it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold