Day 4225 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

John 15:6 NIV

Out of the Way

Simply because that which chooses to be without worth is thus unneeded and to then be unwelcomed within the presence of that which is priceless. For why would that which has purpose consider spending any further time or attention upon that which refuses to consider whatever its purpose might be? Why invite that which delights in doing nothing despite all it’s been given to do something to come alongside that, they whom has done something despite shared reasons not to? Indeed, why accept that which must see itself as unacceptable?

Doesn’t that only lean toward a doubt as to what is acceptable and a deeper distance between that which is and that which is but shouldn’t be?

For you see, within our lost way of life we’ve all come to this place in mind in which we all manage to in unison find that somehow these lives, though given from their inception an understanding of that which is right and that which is not, we’ve all achieved this communal ability to take a great and ever-growing portion of that which isn’t acceptable and seek for ways in which to make it seem otherwise. We’ve all of us spent plenty of time excusing things that are inexcusable, hoping always that we can find someone else to agree with us.

Problem will become for us that we’ve even turned this trick upon God himself. And it’s something we’ve all done so long and perhaps so well because we always manage to consider ourselves the poor little orphans who are just trying to find a way to finally find some even transitory enjoyment in or of this life. Yes, we treat God as, thanks to His clear kindness considered in the cross upon which hung the Christ, as if some then giant softy who will buy our nonsense.

As if He who created us can’t then see right through us to the heart of us and there be able to tell what it is that we’re really up to!

News flash folks, HE CAN!

And what has He seen? That the heart is deceptive beyond all things. That the desires of the human flesh are so vastly fallen that we daily fall for everything that isn’t Him. That, in fact, the flesh longs for that which is contrary to the Spirit leaving then the Spirit to delight in that which is contrary to the flesh, igniting a war waged between the two, not because of Him who created we and He to be one, no, but because of us who want next to nothing to do with Him as is shown, clearly mind you, in our every word, action, assumption even that is undertaken without His being the reason or reward.

And make no mistake, there’ve been a great many of just such words, actions and assumptions thus far.

We’ve made an entire way of life out of living life that way.

And this is where the promise of wrath is promised to supersede the warmth of welcome that we all, for now, have unhindered access to. Indeed, within this life we’ve all been granted just enough time within which to sample and try all that we think might be good so as to finally find that which is good and cling to it like a starving man would a can of Vienna sausages. Yeah, nobody really likes having to end up so enamored with canned meat swimming in some kind of jelly-like substance, and no, it’s by far not the best thing for our worldly health, but hey, when you’re going to die without it, those little jellied weenies look like prime rib!

We’ve just all gotten the two so mixed and mingled that we’ve not seemingly a single idea as to what we’re doing nor why. For within this life the concepts of wickedness and righteousness have become so misconstrued that it almost doesn’t matter what we do as odds are we’re doing something wrong or deceptive or perhaps even utterly depraved along the way.

To where?

The very same nowhere that we’ve all been for the many decades we’ve all been here seeking after only that which is here in what remains the place that has, wouldn’t you know it, no room for He who knocks upon the doors of our hearts seeking a place in which to steal away from the very same world that killed Him centuries ago.

Not that He needs us to shelter Him but, as He is the Shepherd, He seeks to shelter us from the rampant vileness that’s here spiraling daily around us.

Thus He asks to come in to our hearts and there feed us with what is the Bread of Truth and cups of Living Water overflowing all while we learn to walk ever-lowly upon that most homely of existence here in which we no longer lust for all that is here with us but rather drown in the love of He who came here to leave here so as to return here but once more to gather those who are His as have been, by then, living lives that show they know they are.

Are we?

Well, not really.

More than anything we’re more often than not still getting in His way of doing the new thing that He died to do in us. What new thing? To remove from us our hearts of stone and place in their place hearts of flesh that finally beat again to the tune of life and that as played in the sound of forever. Yes, He came to lead us unto the death of all that’s dead in us so that we could be made alive with Him. For there’s but one way to be resurrected unto everlasting life.

And no, it has nothing to do with our trying to enjoy this life, save this life, show this life as if it’s our life as is lived then our way as is considered only when we live our way unto the gathering of things that make us look, feel, sound, seem good.

The only way to be raised to life is for us to die.

Problem is we don’t really want to do that and so we continue coming up with all these reasons and excuses as to why we can’t. Most of which boil down to simply how much we have, how great we feel having it and how sad we’d then be to lose it.

It’s literally the very same story as that rich guy who came to Christ and asked Him what more he had to do to get into Heaven. Jesus recited a couple of the Commandments, to which the dude responded that he’d nailed them down and gotten that taken care of. To which Jesus went further saying that he lacked still one thing and that was a heart of the ability to go and sell all he had, give whatever he made to the poor from the sale of what was probably seen as his entire life’s savings, worth, work, and then come back and follow He who is the Way.

Fella walked away mixed in sadness and disappointment because he was so rich that he couldn’t imagine it, this idea of just giving it all up and then hanging out with a handful of people roaming seemingly aimlessly through the deserts and outskirts of what is the same world within which he’d made his wealth.

Makes no sense.

To those who think that this life is our time within which to win whatever it is that we think winning is. And, alas, we’ve all come to consider the concept of winning as something proven in something gained. And thus to go and get rid of all of our everything and then spend out the rest of our days not worrying about all we’ve lost seems, to us, a lost way of life spent losing all that we can still see so many around us winning or at least trying to.

It’s something akin to spending a lifetime training for some athletic accomplishment only to get to the day of the race, dawn all of the racing garb, step to the line, wait with frantic breath the sound of the starting gun, and then, when it’s gone off, just standing there and watching everyone else run on ahead to find what you’d spent an entire lifetime training to beat them to.

That’s nothing that any of us would ever do!

Because that’s not the way of life that all of us have come to know.

And that’s the problem!!

It’s that we don’t know how to lose. It’s that we don’t enjoy the times in life in which we suffer. It’s that we actively seek to avoid such things as misery and shame and embarrassment. All of which are things that are clearly seen in what is that way that He who is the Way asks us to walk while we’re here.

For indeed, He tells us plain that any who refuse to take up their cross and follow Him are not then worthy of Him as they’ve failed to follow the way in which He walked toward what is that outcome that’s only promised if we’ll do what He did to get there first.

And what did He do?

He died both in and, more importantly, to this world. The first is coming for all of us as all us who are alive here will also then die here as the flesh cannot leave the place from which it came as everything is promised to return to that from which it was taken. So the flesh, which we’ve all known plenty well how to live to fully please, it’s going to eventually be nothing but the dust and dirt from which it came.

Again, problem is that soul is also going to go back to that from which it came.

And, well, that reunion might not go quite so well as the flesh simply drying out and returning to dust.

Why?

Because the flesh was only ever the vessel that He formed to carry the soul through this world and so it was never to have become so important as it has to us anyway. And that it has become so important to us has left us living a way of life in which we seek both day and night to do that which pleases the flesh. And, again, that’s where the ultimate problem is because, again, the flesh desires that which is contrary to the Spirit.

But it’s our spirit that will be judged and that by the Spirit from whom we came.

And, well, we’ve not walked in His way. We’ve not done much if any of our share of His new thing. We’ve not taken up our crosses and followed Him. We’ve not gone and sold all we had, given whatever we got from the sale to those who are poor, and then, again, followed Him.

No, we’ve followed ourselves. We’ve followed those who look like us, act like us, walk like us, talk like us, sound like us, seem like us. Why? Because there’s plenty of them and they all seem to be living what is a way of life that’s so enjoyable and successful and satisfying that they must have found the very best way to do this thing we all call life.

Because most folks here are having so much fun and feeling so very good that next to nobody seems to find any reason to sit with the reality we’re all gonna die!

After all, why invite such a detraction from all the fun we’re all here having?

Yeah, why take up crosses and find upon them all the losses of all we’ve come to like and love within this life? Why accept His invitation to deny ourselves?

That doesn’t sound like very much fun.

And that’s because it isn’t.

There is nothing enjoyable about anything of all that Jesus came to accomplish. His entire stay here was marked by argument and debate, His every step shadowed by hate from those He literally came only to help. And the story, at least here, literally ends with His having been found guilty of a crime He didn’t commit to which He was sentenced to die by crucifixion!

He came to die and to get there lonely, tired, hated and even deserted by those who’d walked with Him.

Why do we think we’re entitled to a different way of life than the way of life the Way and Life lived?

Again, He told us all point blank that if we’ll not take up our crosses and follow Him that we’re not then worthy of Him. And friends, it just makes sense as it’s so utterly fair that we cannot find any logical excuse as to why we didn’t if in fact we don’t. There’s going to be nothing we can say that will ever possibly assuage the anger that we’re all to meet if we do not walk as the hands and feet of He whose hands and feet were pierced for our transgressions.

If we don’t live as if we know Jesus, then why would Jesus agree to allowing us to go on living?

No, again, it’s all been made impossibly clear right here. If we remain apart from Him, He who is the vine which then gives us all that we need to sustain our ability to not only live a life but to do so bearing the fruit for which we were put here to bear, we thus then have no life and too nothing that we can ever accomplish that could ever mean anything.

We’re just dead. We’re dried up twigs that serve but one purpose and that’s to be tossed into a fire that’s used to keep another warm or to cook their meals or heat their homes.

And, well, once dry twigs are burned up, they’re just gone. They’re ashes.

They’re dust.

Is that the outcome we hope to find at the end of this ride? Just us tossed aside thanks to having given these lives to doing the same to Him?

Friends, one of the scariest verses in the entire Bible is that where Jesus promises all of us that if we don’t live to know Him, then He too will agree that He never knew us.

And, again, why invite anyone in to spend forever with you when they’ve already given a lifetime to ignoring you?

Look, I get it, yes, God is kind. God is caring. God is literally love! But friends, we cannot actually expect Him to just throw open the doors to Heaven to all those who never once stopped looking for it here. For while He is good and kind and caring and loving, He’s also reasonable and righteous and jealous and just. And, well, there’s just no logic in giving the gift of eternal life to those who refused to do anything of the little you asked them to do as a show of good faith as is seen inside their doing such simple things as loving God and loving others.

Things we’ve all proven entirely too busy to do as we’ve all been entirely too busy loving only ourselves.

And that is clearly not the way that Jesus lived as He surrendered His very own life, embracing the misery of having to die the way He did, all to show all of us the wrath demanded thanks to the life we’ve lived.

For the life we’ve lived hasn’t been one lived His way. If anything, most of what we’ve done has only gotten in His way. We’ve become masters at preventing His helping us, healing us all by coming upon all these considerations that have us all convinced that we don’t need Him to.

Oh, friends, we do!

But He can’t heal what we won’t admit is broken or hurting. He can’t help us find what we refuse to accept we’ve lost. And, well, He can’t give life to those who think they’ve already found the best way to live one, and that alongside an assumption that it’s only found where we’re all already living one.

It isn’t.

This world is just in the way of our being where He left this world to lead us.

If we then continue to live in step with this world, then it’s the world leading us, isn’t it?

My point is that we’ve all come to know a way of life that only leads us away from the way that the Way lived His life, away from the way the Way calls us to live our lives. If we continue to do so, we’ll only end up surprised whenever He throws us out of His way and takes away from us our lives.

Something He will do unto all those who choose to continue to refuse to do the simple things He’s called us to. Are they easy? No. And that’s why most won’t do them. But friends, Heaven is only to be found by those who follow He who is the Way there. So if we don’t do that, then we simply won’t be welcomed once we get there.

Rather we’ll be gathered up with all the rest of the twigs who spent their lives denying His call and all thrown into the fire that will burn up those who rejected every possible chance to believe in something better than whatever it was that they found that only then got in their way of seeing how lost we all really are without Him.

How much more are we willing to risk having to lose?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold