Day 4230 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 25:35 NIV

Give to receive

And that unto the least of these. And why? Well, because contrary to common confusion the point of this life was never about what we had or what we hope to have. It was never about how we feel or what we then expect to happen or not so as to ensure that we end up feeling however we want. It wasn’t to look out for number one or to even consider ourselves second. No, the point of this life, especially one lived within this faith, it was for our to find ways to trade places with those who are in last place in this place in which all of life is a race that nearly everyone else is running backwards.

All because nearly all of us are down here every day trying our best to make sure our lives are always the same.

Indeed, we’re all trained to endure struggle, suffering, shame so long as it means that we’re somehow better for it. And don’t get me wrong, there is a certain manner that such is in truth a very good, a very helpful, a very healthy thing to do. And I say that because I believe that struggling and suffering and even feeling shame can be the catalysts that inspire inside of us a willingness to overcome them, to push through them, to seek inside that kind of life that we didn’t know we could live.

But friends, so often all we agree to endure or experience or elsewise undertake is only agreed to under the strictest of expectations that said vocations will achieve for us something we want that is in all honesty nothing we need. So while the concept of endurance and that of struggle or shame or other such things can be a good thing, the problem is that, as with pretty much everything else in life as we’ve come to live it down here, we’ve used it only for the bad.

And I say that because we’ve, again as with nearly everything else in life, managed always to find some way to make it all about our personal gain. We’re willing to work long hours at jobs we hate all so that we can make more money to buy more things. We’re willing to stay in loveless relationships simply because we’re both afraid to be alone and not really interested in diving back into the pool looking for another fish to love us. We’re willing to pay exorbitant membership fees to belong to some gym that we never go to because we’re afraid of how weak we’ll look to those who are more seasoned and further along than we are.

We’re willing to do all sorts of things and pay in all sorts of ways all so that we can eventually, hopefully say that we’ve achieved whatever it was that we wanted to achieve.

Problem is that so many of such achievements are focused almost solely on us.

The jobs we hate but spend our lives at anyway, they’re endured to ensure that we can buy stuff that we want. The relationships that may well be literally, physically abusive, they’re endured to ensure that we’re not lonely, because apparently being afraid is somehow better than being afraid. The things we do to our body to help us feel as if we’re in better health as is anymore only measured in the mirror, they’re endured to ensure that we look good, even if we don’t feel good along the way.

And again, I do believe that such things as pain and strain and struggle can be good things for us. As I talk about every now and then I’m myself one who enjoys working out and trying to take better care of this vessel that God’s given me to get me through this life. And so I know that such trials as pushing ourselves past the point where we want to go, finding that fight hidden inside that allows us to go where our bodies aren’t ready to be, uncovering that willingness to stop quitting on ourselves and rather ask of ourselves more so that we can do more, grow more, be more, those are all good things.

But they’re not the goal.

The amount of money we have in the bank doesn’t define our life’s worth. The number of people who we believe love us doesn’t tell us how good of a person we are. The way we look in the mirror cannot define our health beyond such visual indications as muscle definition and whether or not those muscles are easier to see than our fattier tissue is.

Those things are only trail makers.

They’re building blocks that we’re meant to use to build something even bigger and ever better.

And that’s because, again, the point of this life we’re living was never us who are living it.

It’s what we do with it. And, more specifically, why we do whatever we do. And, more importantly, for whom we do whatever we do.

And again, the issue is that the ultimate answer has long been us. I literally just woke up not even an hour ago unto this overwhelming realization that I’d made a massive mistake. And, for whatever reason, this mistake has managed to center on one single thing that I just yesterday spent time working on so that I could finally hang it on the wall in my room.

What I realized is that lately I’ve been spending so much of my time, of my mind, of my life upon those things that are, well, things. I’ve allowed my focus to shift to the stuff around me, the things that I’ve been working on, this room that I’ve been decorating. And again, not necessarily a bad thing. But the issue seems always to be that we’re always so willing, able, eager to agree to spend nearly all of life focusing so much on ourselves that we eventually get lost inside the same.

And so now this thing seems to have become something of an indictment to time misspent, and money too. All because I used plenty of the both only to do something that I wanted to do, on something I wanted to have, on something that I neither need nor can’t live without.

And so when I’m finished with this post I’ve every intention of listing it for sale and getting back to living the simple, boring, emptying way of life that I’ve come to love.

I’ve had this nagging feeling for at least a little while that something was off. And honestly, I’ve known all along exactly what it was. It was, sadly is, that I’ve been, again, spending entirely too much time thinking about myself, my life, my room, my things. And I know the difference because I used to do that all the time. I used to spend all of my life focused on me. Thankfully I’ve learned over the years to do so less and less, though still by no means perfect.

A sad fact proven in all this work on me and my things that I’ve been doing.

But my point is that I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t like the fact that my life’s reverted back to me being the focal point. I don’t like me being the one I seek to please.

I hate that feeling.

And I think that’s for good reason. And that said reason is because we’re not supposed to feel that way. And that because He created us with the ability to feel so that we could tell whenever something was off. It’s called discernment, and though we all try really hard nearly every day to drown it, deny it, the truth is that deep down we all know that which is right from all that is not.

And so anytime that we ever feel any way within this life that causes us to miss peace or purpose, it’s on purpose!

And that’s because, again, this life’s purpose never had anything to do with us outside of whatever it is that we can do for those around us. For this life is but ours to give away. All then that will ever matter is what we give, why we give it and to whom it’s given.

This is the call of Heaven!

Literally just last night I read in Matthew through the passage of the rich young man who asked Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life. Jesus told him at first to keep the commandments and rattled off a few specific examples. The man said he’d done just that, as if keeping the commandments is something we can finish, and so asked Him what still he lacked. And, to that, Jesus advised him to go and sell all he had and give to the poor and then to come back and follow Him.

The man left dejected because his life’s affluence inspired the rejection of such a request as he just had too much and couldn’t bear the idea of getting rid of it.

Friends, we’re all that man. For we’ve all known that way of life that we’ve again spent focusing almost exclusively on us seeking to ensure our success, our pleasure, our treasure. We’ve all spent our lives trying to make sure it was always our lives that were sorted out and squared away well before we ever even considered helping anyone else.

We are selfish to a fault and the fault is, maybe ironically so, all our own!

And this I know because the way we’ve lived is quite unlike the way that Jesus did. In fact, in another verse I recently read, as He was sending out the Disciples to start spreading the Good News of the Kingdom having come, He reminded them that as they’d freely received so too were they to freely give. To seek to gain nothing in the doing of what He was sending them to do. To just go and do.

Can you imagine what that kind of life would be like?

To just go and do. To wake up every day, get ourselves together real quick, and then explode out of the door focused only on doing what He put us here to do?

And what did He put us here to do?

Well, as Jesus told that rich man who ended up walking away from hope itself, love God and love others as ourselves. And, well, maybe that’s where we manage to always get tripped up. Maybe it’s that whole “as ourselves” part of the equation. Maybe it’s that we’ve managed to read from that that we’re to at first love ourselves and then, once we’ve figured out how to do so well, then go and love others.

No.

We’re to love others as we love ourselves as is done in such simplicity as seeking for those things in life that are necessity. Do we have food? Do we have shelter? Do we have water? Do we feel loved? Do we feel safe? Do we have hope?

Do we know He who is the Bread, the Water, the shelter of a Shepherd, the love sent us from above, the safety of knowing that we’ve life in eternity waiting for this one to end, the hope of forever spent in peace and rest and joy with Him in Heaven?

Those things ain’t none of us can live without. The thing I spent yesterday putting together and hanging on my wall, yeah, I can get by alright without it. In fact, in light of how it’s left me feeling, all selfish and such, I’ll fair far better without it.

Because I’ve come to know that, well, no, life doesn’t consist inside an abundance of possessions. Life doesn’t exist inside an existence focused almost only on my life, on myself. Life isn’t the result of our seeking always more or to feel always better or to look stronger or smarter or more successful than anyone else.

Life rather consists inside a heart willing to wager whatever we have upon the audacity that God’s able to always provide more should we bet on Him being the reason we’re here.

It’s to take all that He gives us at first the ability and then the opportunity to do and to, get this, do it!

Yes, I believe that this life is ours to spend doing whatever it is that we can with whatever it is that we have that He’s given us the ability to have, to hold, to be, to know. Because I know that we’ve each within us something that someone around us needs.

Maybe it’s encouragement as they’re going through something hard or scary. Maybe it’s an ear willing to listen rather than just hear them as they get things off of their chests that they’re broken from trying to carry. Maybe it’s a little bit of our money as is spent on nonperishables at the store that we drop off at a shelter who helps those who are hungry. Maybe it’s something as simple as a prayer prayed for a strange we see hurting or lost or lonely.

Friends, whatever it may be the point is that we can all do something.

And that any of all that we do can only ever really mean anything should we do it for a reason other than ourselves.

For that’s the example that we’re called to follow. You see, back to the rich man who ended up walking away from Jesus, His ultimate request wasn’t that the man go and sell all he had and give to the poor. No, if you’ll recall there was still something else asked of him after that. What? To come back to Jesus and follow Him.

That’s the point of this life.

It’s at first our embracing the call to keep the commandments as such does indeed provide unto us an understanding of who we are and what we’re here to do. That’s the personal part. That’s the part in which we get ourselves lined out. That’s the part in which the foundation is poured that our lives here are to be built upon which He then can build what is a church, a living testimony to all He is and all He did and all still He does.

Then comes the lifelong necessity of ensuring that everything else stays out of our way. That’s the part where the testimony is built. It’s within those things that try, and sometimes succeed, in getting in our way of doing what He put us here to do. It’s in those things that we do let in that we do then have to go and get rid of.

But then comes the ultimate calling which is, again, to come and follow Jesus. Because He is our example. He is our purpose. He is our life and that simply because He both gave us life, gives us the promise of eternal life, and tells us how to live decent lives as we wait in this middle.

And one day, as we’ve been talking, we’ll all be judged according to what we did with all He continues to give us both the ability and the opportunity to do.

And it will prove quite the issue should it be seen that most of what we did only focused mostly on us.

Because there’s nothing of that kind of mindset to be found within the One who gave Himself up for us on our cross.

And yeah, that’s kind of the point of His calling us to take up our crosses and follow Him. It’s because, well, crosses are meant to kill. Thus we’re meant to die to ourselves upon our crosses as we follow the Boss who showed us best how to do so with patience, humility, dignity, generosity, honesty, kindness, love, mercy.

All things that we all have within us that we can and then are too meant to give unto those around us in what are supposed to be lives that live to reflect Jesus rather than ensure our own pleasure or success.

WE DON’T MATTER IN THIS!!!

Friends, we’re just the clay jars that hold the hope of eternal life as is given us by He who continues to overflow our lives with His Living Water and Bread of Life so that we’ve always more than enough inside of us to share all we can with those around us who need us to be more like Jesus and less like this selfish world around us!

When shall we start?

And why is that even a question?

If not because it’s one we’ve always managed to not hear Him asking and that simply because we’re a people who think it more blessed to receive than to give. But again, there’s nothing of Jesus to see inside that mindset, that lifestyle. And, well, if there’s nothing of Jesus in it then there’s nothing of Jesus in us so long as we continue to agree to it.

And if we show up to those gates with nothing of Jesus to show inside the lives we’d lived, then what makes us think that Jesus will agree that we should be let in?

Doesn’t work that way my friends.

Doesn’t work that way.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold