Day 4235 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 7:22 NIV

Busy with unbelief

And that simply because it’s become entirely too easy and thus too common and thus too normal for us to believe that the things we do might matter. In fact, the very idea of our actions perhaps meaning something, making a difference, inflicting a change or imposing a point has become one of the most common beliefs shared amongst man. Why? Because what we do does matter, especially here. And that’s because the things we do, words we say, even the thoughts we think bring with them real-life and often real-time outcomes.

In truth all of this life that we’re all here going through, it’s a true experiencing of what is cause and effect in which what we do does mean something in the way of a result found.

Problem is that we’ve all become so focused if not in fact utterly fixated on said results that life itself has resulted in this outlook that has us all but entirely sure that there’s always something we say or think or do that might hopefully help change things or inspire a situation to improve. Because, again, it has worked out like that in this life. We have all found ourselves in those situations, those circumstances in which a well-worded answer lessened someone’s anger or a well-thought out plan did go according to plan.

All of us have seen and felt and known so many of those experiences that we’ve come easily upon the consideration that what we say or do might be able to help get us out of what may well be or become a fairly precarious predicament.

Judgement Day won’t work like that.

Why?

Well, because upon that Day there will be no time left for us to do anything at all as rather all we’ll have done will be by then done and all then that will be left is for our to receive the just verdict for the entirety thereof. That’s literally why it’s called Judgement Day. It’s the Day upon which we will all be judged by He who is the Judge, a reality found in that so too is He the Giver of the Law by which we’ll be judged and so too the same origin of He who is the Son through whom we must be saved.

From what?

Lives spent doing evil works and making mistakes and allowing for misunderstandings in terms of everything from mercy to meaning. Yes, we’ve all of us lived that version of life in which we got so much so far from right that Christ literally had to die to set things straight. And, that He did, well, then there’s simply nothing left for anyone else to do as all that we do is from the day of the cross either done in accord with the understanding that He died for our sins (an understanding which should inspire us to turn our lives over to Him and pray every single day that He help us to not sin again) or rather in disagreement that He did what He’s done as is seen inside the truth that still there is nothing new under the sun.

For the sad truth is that still we’re all doing basically the same things that people have been doing ever since the fall. And the all can be quite easily summed in that we’re busy in lives assumed to be both ours and thus opportunities to seek first ourselves and their pleasures and then to worry about whatever other concerns might be worth being concerned about only after we’re whoever we want to be feeling however we want to feel in what are commonly lives lived however we want to live them.

This is the accomplishment of our works.

It’s nothing but the putting of ourselves first as is done in literally everything by literally everyone literally every moment of every single day. All because, and I get it, we are the only ones who are living our lives and thus all that is done within them has some sort of reliance upon us either doing it or at the very least determining how it is that react to it being done.

But that’s kind of the problem.

It’s that our reaction to what He’s done has been, let’s say, underwhelming. Because the truth is that there’s entirely too little to be seen in terms of regeneration inside of us and our words and our choices and the actions which come from them. Rather we still mostly do what we’ve always done which is all but ignore the Son by, at best, allowing Him to be but a second thought thought only after we’ve run through the first, usually which revolves around us.

We literally see that reality spilled out verbatim right here.

“Did WE not prophesy.”

“Did WE not drive demons out.”

“Did WE not perform the miracles.”

It’s about we. It’s about us. It’s about me because, again, it’s me and we who are living our lives doing those things within them that accomplish with them so many outcomes that surely we have a hand in seeing as how we’re the ones doing them.

Friends, this is the same discrepancy that kept Moses from entering the Promised Land!

It was back at Meribah when, yet again, the people were whining and complaining and putting then God to the test because they were less than impressed with how long it was taking to get them to this land promised to be flowing with milk and honey. God told Moses to go and speak to this rock and that, when he did, water would pour from it for the people to drink, proving that God is able to provide and that Moses does speak with Him as the simple act of speaking to a rock would show that no action was needed on the part of Moses but rather just that he act as a speaker through which God’s power would be displayed.

Indeed, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.” Numbers 20:8

Problem comes in that when they had gathered the people Moses said this:

“Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Numbers 20:10

See, “we”. As in it would be he and Aaron who would bring forth the water for them to drink. “Must WE bring you water out of this rock?” We, not God.

And then the problem went even further in verse 11 in which “Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.”

Didn’t speak as He was commanded. Rather he struck the rock. He acted rather than just being passive. He took it upon himself to undertake a show for the people instead of just standing there and talking.

None of this had anything to do with anything God had commanded Moses to do.

Because the focus was once again allowed to become all about what people do and then their doing it for what became the result that those around them wanted, even the result they thought they wanted. For Moses likely just wanted the people to stop fighting with him. He probably just wanted to get the water to the people so that they’d be pacified for a moment. And yet, in that moment, God became the afterthought thought about only after Moses took it upon himself to make it seem as if he and Aaron were the ones to make this miracle happen and that as was done through his undertaking an action that he was not asked to undertake.

Did WE not “in your name perform miracles?”

See, we think that just because we put His Name on it that it’s then justifiable. That claiming that whatever we say or think or do is said or done or thought because Jesus told us to is all that we have to say. But friends, our trying to justify our words and deeds and lives by saying that all we did was done in Christ doesn’t prove that our hearts will agree. Rather, “these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

It’s all lip service. It’s all a performance put on for people, even if it’s just a show of one and that for a crowd of us by ourselves. It’s our trying to continue proving that we have some kind of control, some sort of say, that we’re involved in the outcome somehow. Thus it remains about us trying to have even just a glint of the glory.

But again, Judgement Day won’t work like that because upon that Day all will finally find out exactly what He meant when He said “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.”

He will not share His glory even with we who were created in His image who have, since then, become our biggest fans and idols in our own eyes in what have come to become entire lives lived thinking that something we say and something we do and most of what we think might be able to prove of the ability to alter a situation for the better.

A belief we’ve all come to believe because, well, here it has. Again, Moses told the people that he and Aaron would bring forth the water for them to drink. Moses beat up a rock until it did as his actions seemed to have caused. Thus it was his words and his actions that did just so happen to seem to achieve the result desired by all.

It’s just that the result was achieved without God getting the glory as would have been done had Moses simply spoken to the rock the words that God had given him to say.

We refuse to let life be that simple. We refuse to step aside and just let God take the spotlight. We refuse to surrender our need to be the ones in the headlines. Why? Because we want some of the glory too! We want to retain the ability to point to something that happens, that turns out well and tell the tale all about the part we played in it going that way.

But friends, there is no other Name under Heaven given unto man by which, through whom we must be saved.

Moses, though the central figure of the entire story of the Exodus, we’re talking all the plagues and all the miracles, Red Sea and burning bush and 40 days spent on a mountain literally talking with God and coming back with the two stone tablets carved by God with the 10 Commandments, his name didn’t matter. Because Moses couldn’t save the people. Moses couldn’t provide for the people. Moses was just a person.

Same with David. Same with Abraham. Same with Joshua. Same with Peter. Paul. None of them all can save us.

We can’t save us.

The only thing that can save us is our coming to terms with that fact and looking from then on unto the only One who can.

And then doing all we do unto His glory, not our own.

Because it’s not what we do in these lives that will prove ever enough to save us. It’s not the miracles we seem to perform because, well, it’s never us performing them. It’s not the demons we overcome or the prophecies that turn out true. It’s only doing all that we do knowing that He is the only reason we can. That’s why it’s said that faith is a relationship. It’s because it demands one and that because relationships inspire reliance. They ask us to put our hope, our joy, our safety, in this case our lives and their eternity into the hands of another.

Thereby agreeing to surrender whatever say or power or control we and our ego probably thought we had.

A surrender that won’t be there to be seen when upon that Day so many show up talking all about all they did, all they accomplished, all the goodness they achieved in the actions and words and performances they performed.

And He will tell them plainly that He never knew them and that because it remained only them that they were focused on.

“Did WE not prophesy”; “Did WE not drive out”; “Did WE not perform”.

Did WE not save ourselves?

No.

He did.

He gave us the words of whatever prophecy we may happen to prophesy. He gave us the ability, the opportunity and the authority to drive out whatever demons we may from whomever we might. He accomplished the miracles through our willingness to get out of the way and let Him do His thing.

It’s not us. We’re but vessels. We’re clay pots. We’re nothing but dirt and patience wrapped in skin and given within the challenge to choose who we focus on no matter what we do.

And the problem continues to prove that it’s more often than not only ourselves that we do focus on. Life remains almost entirely about what we do, what we say, what we think.

All of which will only prove the problem on that Day when it’s proven that basically everything we ever said, did or thought was sin!

Friends, we have to stop looking at ourselves and, well, get over ourselves. Because upon the Day all that we should hope to be of the honest ability to say is that we know Jesus! Because without that honesty, we’ll be turned away toward death eternally.

Not because God’s not loving or in any way unkind. Simply because He will not yield His glory to another nor share His praise with idols. He won’t then share His glory with us who so often live as if we too are gods nor then His praise with we who are a people so consumed inside idolatry that we ourselves have become our biggest fans.

In the end it won’t matter what we do or can say we did but rather only whether we knew Christ as our Lord and Savior or just a Name written in a book that helped us to look good.

It will never be about us and, well, that’s why so many continue to walk away. It’s because we’ve all thought it was and that then makes the humility of His hope the hardest lesson for us to learn.

Promise is that all will learn it.

Problem is that most are busy still lost in their various unbeliefs as are seen inside of lives that we all continue to live as if we’re the ones in control.

We’re not and our only prayer should be that we learn that now while we’ve a chance to be changed by it with life still left to be lived rather than later after the matter has become forced and life is then taken off the table simply because we’d spent the one we had refusing to listen to God.

It’s clear to see that we’re all free to believe that what all we say and do matters, means something, makes a difference. But friends, upon that Day nothing we’ll have said or done will mean anything nor change anything unless Jesus is the only reason behind it.

Believe elsewise if you want but His Word specifically says that our salvation is not by works so that no man might boast.

Pretty sure He means that.

Why then do we yet believe it?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold