Day 4226 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 13:40 NIV

Kindling

There’s a lot that can be said about how someone lives their life. In fact, how we live our lives says all there is to say, all then that needs to be heard. And that’s because our every action, our every word, it’s all but one more piece to the puzzle that is us. And the simple truth is that when all of the pieces do continue to match up, the final picture that begins to show is going to show who it is that we will be known to be because all we do was always done based entirely upon every doubt and belief that defined our existence here.

Problem is that we don’t really see all that many of our actions as having such a significance.

Instead we all seem of a better ability to see and assume that nearly everything of all that we think, say, do, assume is mostly all but harmless if it’s any of it even noticeable. And indeed, I think we’ve all come unto this belief in which we sure seem to believe that most if not all of all that we do indeed do is just that, it’s unnoticeable. It’s hidden. It’s secret. It’s nothing more than a mere blip in the radar that is our ride through this life, something so minute and miniscule that nobody would fail to miss it.

And perhaps we’re right in this assumption as, well, all of us do indeed have our proverbial skeletons in what are equally proverbial closets that exist as things said or done or thought about that nobody else knows about. Issue is that we gauge this estimation upon the other humans around us who are too lost in this vocation that we all call living. And indeed, all of us have said and done and thought a great many things that nobody else has ever heard or seen or known.

But we do.

We know what we’ve seen. We know what we’ve said. We know what we’ve done. Truly, I still remember stupid things I said when I was a kid. Still remember silly things I did when I was in school. I could not possibly count the amount of foolish things that I’ve thought about, many of which I went even further and acted upon.

My point is that we all know quite well that we’ve not always done that well at everything we’ve ever done. We’re all plenty aware of plenty of mistakes that we’ve made, misunderstandings that we fell into, confusions and delusions that have determined for us regrets that we probably still have.

We all know that we’ve messed some stuff up, some of it perhaps pretty bad.

And yet we all live as if nearly all of everything we do is relatively harmless even though such things as guilt and regret harm only us. And so what I’m saying is that even though there may indeed be nobody around us who could ever possibly know everything we’ve ever done, we all know enough to know that we’ve messed up far more often than our prideful regality would ever seem to show or say.

Indeed, we all live this life carrying ourselves within this way that finds us daily doing whatever we can to never let on that we’re struggling, that we’re scared, that we’re stupid.

Because those aren’t the images that anyone else wants to see as they’re only reminders that, well, so too are they!

We’re all idiots. We’re all fools. We’re all fans and fiends who make friends with some rules and only find fun in breaking others. Because that’s what life here has been allowed to become. It’s a veritable furnace which is daily allowed to test us via so many trials and temptations that, again, a picture slowly starts to come together that will show any who choose to look all they would ever need to know about who we are as will be seen based upon what all we’ve done.

Even the parts that we’re pretty sure nobody else knows about.

And that because, well, God’s not limited by our assumption of there needing to be physical proximity to have allowed someone else to have seen all the stupid things we’ve said and done.

He knows our hearts.

And thus He knows all that’s crooked and cancerous and confused and corrupt within them. Friends, He’s known every thought we’ve ever had!

How is it then that we continue ahead in this collective assumption that the impending Day of Judgment won’t go very, very bad?

If not simply because we’ve all become cohesively numb to the whole idea of there being actual consequences to our every word, thought and action? And, well, how did we all manage to come upon that ideal idea if not because the rest of the world continues painting this picture of life in which it doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks is wrong or right as everyone seems to just keep doing only whatever they want while justice snores quietly in the other room?

For indeed, it seems daily as if everyone here is utterly free to pick and choose what they say and what they do and thus we’re all just down here running amok through what’s then become a life so mucky that we’re all lucky to get through a day without some kind of shame being seen inside something we’ve seen or said. All but all of everything anymore seems only starting at worse and going toward bad.

I cannot believe some of the things I’ve seen. I can’t believe some of the things I hear on commercials anymore. I can’t believe some of the stories I’ve been told about things others have done. It’s all just, well, unbelievable.

And I don’t know a fraction of it!

I find myself wondering all the time how heartbroken God must be to look down on this world and see all that’s done upon it. I get both sad and frustrated and, yes, sometimes straight up infuriated just going to the grocery store as I’m simply tired of all the filth and foolishness that I have to see along the way. Strip clubs and adult video stores (one of the latter that I actually went in one time), weed shops and vape peddlers, obvious users of such drugs and degradations, so much anger and animosity, so many so clearly so lost and hurting, so many that seem so scared, so many with so many tattoos and piercings that I don’t know how they feel, let alone what.

It’s all just collapsing, and, as I mentioned in regard to previous indiscretions, indecencies, moments of utter moral idiocy and modest infancy, I know I’ve taken part in helping it crash.

Again then, how can I imagine that Judgment Day won’t go very bad?

Well, I can’t. In fact, I’m terrified of it. Anymore my daily life is this vengeful blend of a hope found in leaving all the decay I’m seeing, hearing, feeling and a fear of being found before the Judgment Seat of Christ and having no answers to the questions I have no reason to imagine He’s not going to ask.

I’ll just be there speechless, so frozen in shame and sorrow that I’ll not have words but only worries.

Because I know what I’ve done. And I know then that I’ve gotten far more wrong than I always pretended I was getting right. In fact, in my life now, I don’t myself allow to imagine that I get anything right as I only dare keep count of the wrongs. Why? Because I don’t estimate that I get much right anyway and so I may as well keep track of all the many mistakes as they give me plenty of reminders that I’m blessed to be here still in what is a life in which we’re all works in progress.

Or at least that we should be.

Indeed, there should be something to see that says we’re doing things differently than however we’ve done them before. Why? Because, again, I know that we all know that we’ve all done plenty of things that left only guilt, shame, regret in their wake. All of us have made tons of mistakes. All of us, as the Bible does say, have indeed fallen away and there sinned and then fallen short again of the glory of God.

And so we all have plenty of room to improve from what have come to be lives lived amongst the weeds.

What weeds?

“Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.” Mark 4:18-19

And all then that’s left is to “let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.” Matthew 13:30

Why?

Because, “while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.” Thus you might damage or ruin some of the good that’s been left to grow amongst the rest.

And so He lets us grow right where we are in what is a world that is promised to be destroyed one day. And yet we spend still so many days focused on doing, saying, thinking about and/or agreeing with so many worldly things that we probably don’t realize the proximity of our trajectory nor just how different it ought to be.

For if our goal is life at the end of this ride then we should be doing that which He who is the Life has called us to do in life.

And it’s not all outward things such as giving to the poor or taking care of widows and orphans. In fact, even those things are but other pieces of our own life’s puzzle that come from our hearts and show there forth an image of who we really are. For, again, all that we say, all that we do, it all comes from the heart.

And God knows our hearts.

And He promises us here that at the end of the age, the end of either this world or our lives as are lived within it (whichever happens to come first for us), He will fulfill that which He promised us in, say, Matthew 3:12:

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

For “surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them.’”

But thankfully, “’for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,’ says the LORD Almighty.”

All of that’s from Malachi chapter 4.

It’s a promise as to the fullness of what’s coming for all of us. It’s the Day of Judgment, a judgment that comes because, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind.” Why? “To reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”

That’s Jeremiah 17:10

Friends, my point this morning is that the way in which we’ve all lived these lives has been so marked and marred by lust and lies that we’re all found guilty already. And I say this because Christ has already came the once to atone for our sins found within these lives we’ve been living. All of us have sinned. All of us have done wrong. All of us have messed up so much for so long that we live in a world now in which it’s both hard to tell the difference between right and wrong and that because most just don’t care to.

We’d better learn to start caring.

Why?

Because He always has.

God is righteous. God is just and justice. God is jealous and that for the glory that we’ve all of us lived giving to everything but Him. He has seen all we’ve done, heard every word we’ve said, literally said that He searches the heart and examines the mind of each of us so as to, upon that coming day when Jesus comes the second time, repay all of us according to what our every deed deserves.

Friends, what do our deeds deserve? For in truth we’ve all again plenty of things that even we think deserve to be hidden, forgotten, literally erased from the reality in which we know we really did them.

For we know that we’re not the fruitful wheat that He created us to be but that rather, thanks to our trying so hard for so long to look like the weeds, live like the weeds so as to be loved by the weeds, we ourselves have lived like weeds!

And, well, that doesn’t bode well for us in light of a verse which gives us a promise like this!!

But that’s why He came to do a new thing. And it’s also why His new thing was to die to all that’s in this world that basically constitutes this life! It was to take up a literal cross and die thereupon in order to show us both what will happen to the weeds who’ve found inside themselves a darkened ability to cheer on His agony but also that there’s no other way to Heaven than our taking up our own versions and ridding our lives, ourselves, our souls of all that’s inspired us to, even if not cheer on His suffering, do the things, say the things, think the things that caused it.

We all played a part in His crucifixion as He endured that death on our behalf because all of us have sinned.

And friends, sin is death no matter what the world says nor how different we may have come to feel about it.

We don’t get a say. Like I said, I don’t know that we’ll be able to say anything on that Day.

Because, for many, that day will come upon them suddenly and all of the sudden this God they’ve ignored will prove very, very real. And when He does, all they’ve done will also prove to be really judged by the same.

And He’s told us plain how that will go.

All of us have lived our lives willfully agreeing to be but kindling for the very flames of hell. And sadly many will go on doing exactly that until they’re forever found unable to escape the same.

It doesn’t have to be that way. And He told us such promises as this so as to open our eyes to the vast need for what may well be violent change in our lives. It doesn’t matter. Let it hurt. Let it be scary. Live out the rest of your days in every way lonely, empty and afraid. He even told us that if our eyes or hands or feet cause us to sin to rip them out, cut them off and throw them away.

He would rather see us maimed than see us turned away!

It should mean that much to us too.

What will we have to say should we arrive upon the Day at the unimagined end of what have long been lives in which we’d lived as if it didn’t?

Friends, the time for living like weeds is over. May not be over for many around us who will go on doing as they’ve always done. But if we want something of an outcome better than our forever being held in the fires of hell, well, we ought to welcome His refining version of the flame while we still can.

For we won’t have the opportunity forever.

And forever’s entirely too long to spend it realizing just how wrong we got our one chance to find the better part of it.

Thankfully we've good news in that you can't pull up that which here has no root and nor can you burn that which has already endured the flames of refinement as are sent us from Heaven so as to prepare us all for what’s coming.

But are we ready?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold