Day 4214 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Peter 1:3 NIV

Follow by example

For it’s only when we agree to so do that we can do anything worth being done, so long as they whom we seek to follow form for us the proper example that we’ll thus too become but mimics of thanks to our having chosen to run within what is the way in which they lead. Yes, we are indeed here to lead by example as this world clearly needs those who are willing to be different, to stand out, to stand up, to stand upon something worth standing on, something able to be stood upon. But even leaders follow the examples of things they’ve seen or heard or elsewise learned from another they once followed.

Guess the only difference is that Christians never stop following Christ even despite the chance we’re through Him given to become leaders ourselves.

No, there is no graduation process toward which sanctification aims. There’s not some ceremony in which we’ll celebrate our having come to complete our training, our learning, our changing even. Rather in Him all things are daily made new as inside every day He shows us unto the doing of something new that we’d either never done prior or, and seemingly more likely, the doing of something that is contrary to what we have done.

This is the change part.

And indeed, that seems to be the ultimate point and purpose of the Word He left with us. To change us. To inspire us. To correct us. Or, as Paul (at the inspiration of the Lord) probably said it best, “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Servant leaning toward the same idea as a follower and the concept of “every good work” clearly reminiscent of yesterday’s verse in which we found that “God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

Tying it all together we’ll see that God blesses us so as to provide unto us all the possible blessings and skills and opportunities and audacities that we may ever need to do those good things, those good works which we’re meant to do, for, as another passage puts it, “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Pointing all toward the entire point of our being here being that God wanted us to be here wherever we are now to do what He created us to do and, through Christ, made us new to have too a renewed chance to do. A salvation made necessary due to our having only done all the normal stuff that’s done under the sun which, sadly, remains even still today mostly only sin.

Yes, Christ came to set us free from the power of sin and the chains of darkness that it had held us in so that we could, through Him, come to become the people He’d initially created us to be, a people created to do good things as are done within what becomes a godly life that we live increasingly as we grow in Him who has given everything we need to do such a thing through His being the example that we’re called to follow.

Something He literally, almost verbatim asked us to do when He told us all of that something new that we’re all to do in the taking up of our crosses and following Him.

Where?

Well, where crosses lead.

Where do crosses lead?

To the ultimate experiencing of humility that is found and felt within our having been dealt the hand that deals with death no longer as something to avoid but rather a hope that becomes so alive inside of us that we spend out the rest of our time in this life as is lived inside this world seeking to become more like Jesus so that, as He’s freed us, our leading other to Him by our following His example might achieve for them the same hopeful humility that we continue to find in Him.

In short He came to save the lost, of whom we all are to varying degrees, and, as He saves you and me, we then become those who, having been saved, have then a testimony that’s able to at the very least confuse those who are still lost as they see in us something that this world both just doesn’t have to give and yet, though it try harder and harder all the time, can nor take away.

And I think that that’s something that everyone here is looking for.

Something they can’t lose or mess up or have stolen like we’ve all had so many other hopes and dreams for so many other things that have only gone up in smoke.

No, people all around us are looking for hope, for peace, for purpose, for some reason that would make them feel as if they’re not a mistake and that their lives are worth something.

And, well, we know someone.

And His Name is Jesus. And, yeah, He has freed us from our too feeling that feeling of emptiness, of loneliness, of shamefulness, of shallowness. He’s given us a peace and a purpose that somehow, unlike anything else we’ve ever tried or done within this life within this world, actually manages to coexist with one another perfectly. In fact, in Him we find that our peace is only known when we’re living within our purpose and thus our purpose is what brings us here peace.

And, thankfully, our purpose is one that’s shared by all of us collectively, which makes it really easy to know both what we’re here to do and, in some strange twist to the plot, affords us a heartbreakingly easy ability to determine whether or not we’re doing it.

For our purpose is to go into all the world and share once there the goodness that is the Good News that Christ has come and is coming back soon. The part that breaks your heart is that you find out pretty quickly just how many aren’t doing this as you grow in Him daily unto the opening of your eyes to the seeing of so many sights that show forth only a life that shouldn’t be lived.

Indeed, as we grow in Him and He in us, and thus we learn what good is from He who is good, we’re going to start seeing a whole lot of things that people have become and done and continue to do down here that are both exceedingly far from good and somehow increasingly the same.

Yes, this world is increasingly wicked even though already exceedingly so.

Proving easily that the more you know the more you’ll probably wish you didn’t because, yeah, with more knowledge comes more grief. And, well, the sad truth is that still we walk within the same world that has no room for Christ. And that fact shows itself in how all of us have lived our lives and how many if not most still do.

Indeed, everything seems to become grievous at some point.

What both gives me hope and yet breaks my heart and terrifies me to death is that I’m finding that I’m pretty much already there at only but 38. And yeah, I know that 38 ain’t all that young, but I don’t feel all that old and having seen so much change for such the worse over the course of my time spent here already, I literally shudder to think of the sights I might still be subjected to see in days still to come.

Just yesterday I was driving down the road headed back home having just picked up some pizzas with my family and I thought, “you know, if I make it to 70 or 80 I might dare allow myself to have a few slices of pepperoni again as by then I’ll probably not feel the need to so control and limit everything so as to keep trying to be as healthy as possible.” But that idea was followed instantly by the realization that I don’t want to make it another 30 or 40 years here as I can’t imagine what this world would look like by then.

I don’t want to imagine it.

Rather, thanks to my faith, I want to be in that place by then that this world isn’t. I want to be with He who came to save me from what’s coming unto this place. I want to have found my reward as is held inside that other place where, contrary to here, there is hope and joy and peace and rest and comfort and meaning and freedom from all that this world is so vastly lost still thinking is good.

No friends, He’s shown us what is good and that it’s laying down our sinful lives so as to get our selfish side out of the way so that we can finally at least begin to become closer to the fulfillment of what He said were the two main commandments, they being loving God and loving others. Something that itself is said by Christ in Matthew 22:37-40:

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

As if to say that everything that He’s called us to do, everything that we’ve since come to so confuse that we’ve all lived, and many still do, as if it’s entirely so hard that it’s not worth even trying out of our fear of probably only failing, it all comes down to loving God and loving those around us. Everything He calls us to do, to be, it’s all made complete in something so simple as love.

Which seems something that all of us know plenty of. It’s just that we mostly love only ourselves.

And the cross doesn’t understand that approach.

Rather the cross calls for a slightly different idea that’s upheld in our dying to ourselves. To refusing to put ourselves first. To rejecting our daily desire to seek first our desires and to put rather the needs of others before our own. And what do we all need?

We all need Jesus because His remains the only Name that can save us!

And indeed, as we’ve been talking He’s long since given us all that we need to do what we’re here to do. He gives daily our daily bread. He refreshes us with water to drink and roofs hung over our heads. He clothes us clothing that allows us to exist within the righteousness of modesty. He gives us His Word which affords us an ability to speak in honesty. He takes us by the hand and guides us daily closer to morality. He gives us everything we need to become, behind Him, examples of the kind of life that we were created to live but somehow forgot how to love along the way.

Why?

Because it all again comes down to love, our love of Him who loved us and gave Him for us so as to free us to see that we are His being that kind of love which matters most.

For it’s only when we’ve become of the ability to realize that we are God’s creation, God’s children, that we can begin these good works which He created for us to do and thus created us to do.

Indeed, we are here to do good things for a good Father who sent unto all He who has since showed us what good is. And what does He ask of us having shown us so much of His goodness as to have literally laid down His life for us?

“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

All because in all of those will we come to accomplish the very reason and every purpose for which we’re here. And that because within all of those we’ll find such things as truth, hope, honesty, morality, modesty. And all of those things are indeed so rare around here that, yeah, they’re going to stand out no matter how small or insignificant they might seem.

Why?

Because no matter the dark nor its depth, there exists no amount of darkness that can stop even the smallest, faintest, weakest most struggling of light from shining. No, even a single candle can be seen nearly two miles away even though surrounded by the darkest of darkness.

Yeah, we can make a difference, have an impact, live a life that is worth something, that accomplishes something, that means something.

But only when we do what little He put us here to which, again, is simply loving Him and loving the rest of His children. And how do we do this? By doing as He’s asked and going into all the world and preaching as we go the message of the Messiah having brought our salvation near enough for all of us to reach out and accept it. All with the promise that His having come the once proves the veracity of His having left then to promise that He’s going to come again.

A day which nears within every breath we breathe, which then means that our job here grows only more necessary, only more meaningful, only more magnified as the darkness of this world grows and growls against us.

Yes, we need this world to hate us, to refuse us, to misunderstand us.

Why?

Because they hated Him first and that because they too thought that He was crazy, confusing, a man losing His mind by calling us all into the grave saying that our death was the place in which He’d chosen to save our lives. And sure, that makes no sense to the worldly man. And that’s because the worldly man still considers all of life to be lived in this world. And so yeah, the message of the cross remains foolishness to those who are perishing.

And yet the message of the cross is the only one that we’re in Him going to find any interest in sharing!

And so yeah, the world’s going to think we’re fools, idiots, whack jobs who need white coats and padded rooms.

Let them.

Because this broken world’s every judgment of us, every condemnation of us, it’s only unto us an evidence that we’re becoming increasingly unlike this world.

And that too is a good work!

One that we again, in Him, have a perfect example to see. For Jesus came here with the express intention of being here so very different that it would cause hordes to come near to see what this strangeness was all about. And what did some of them find as they came near? Healing. Hope. Forgiveness. Mercy. Grace. Kindness. Compassion. Peace. Purpose. Freedom. Meaning.

Salvation.

All because in Him all of such things exist in their perfect measure.

And that’s what we’re here to tell others.

That we’re all the same beggars who’ve been seeking the same bread but have managed to finally find what we need in Him alone. To call everyone we can to come unto the Well that doesn’t run dry nor leave us the same. Indeed, to tell everyone we meet that we’re not the same as we used to be with stories upon stories of all the changes He’s caused us to make. To point unto Him via everything we do and all that we say.

To be His hands and feet, His candle on top of the mountain that is our faith that leads us up, up and away from everything this world so clearly chooses to remain.

Yes, in Jesus He has shown us what a good life looks like and through our humble and ever-humbling submission unto seeking and serving Him alone we will come to know what it’s like to live ourselves a good life. Perfect? No. Impressive? Probably not. But perfection is His to bear and we’re simply not actually here to please or impress anybody.

We’re here to serve Christ through a life given unto a humble devotion to our doing only all that He put us here to do which is, again, to love God and love others the same way He did which is, if you didn’t know, only done in taking up our crosses and dying to this world upon them so that we can get this world out of our way of our living for His will.

And if and when His will is for us to suffer, to struggle, to maybe even succumb to this wicked world’s thinking us so dumb that they’d be better off with us out of their way, we can meet our end here with a smile on our face that will probably cause someone to wonder how.

And then they can find out that it was because we truly had come to count all things here as loss compared to the surpassing glory of knowing Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior in what had been lives lived trying to follow His example by leading others to the same hope we all have in only Him.

Friends, nothing else matters. There is nothing else that we could do that could ever mean near as much as our turning toward Christ and living our lives doing our best to do as He did. Not that we’re here to save people as that’s not our place but His. Our job is to live such good lives amongst they who’re still but pagans that, “though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

Good deeds done via our both sharing the Gospel and too living a life that clearly shows that we really believe every word we speak.

Yes, it can be that simple.

For we’re all just here to follow by example.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold