Day 4238 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Acts 4:11 NIV

Overruled

Because, well, truth is that God’s not persuaded by the arrogance of man nor is He in any way to prove ever inclined toward listening to, learning from nor looking for ways to please those who continue walking in it as is proven in every life that’s ever been lived by those of us, who are all of us, who have indeed lived as if Christ were neither a need nor even a thought. And in all sadness this is something that has defined all of us and how we’ve gone about at least a portion of our time here.

We’ve all rejected Him, refused Him, ignored Him, maybe even mocked those who believed in Him before we did.

Why?

I personally think it’s because deep down we all know inside our bones and their marrow that “anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces” whereas too “anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

And, well, human logic has us all pretty much convinced that neither of those is in any way an outcome worth wanting and so, well, we’ve just all chosen to not worry about it in whatever way we might think we can actually achieve that. Most of us, which is again all of us, do it via the many various voices and vices which exist around us which also tell us that we need to focus on ourselves, to enjoy ourselves, to put ourselves first and expect that doing so will accomplish all this life was ever meant to be.

And this approach to what we clearly then contend is hope has found us all hanging upon the rope that is rebellion and rejection and just this blanket revolting that finds us all still struggling not to find ways to enjoy ourselves nor make our lives then seem enjoyable but rather to find any reason why anyone else may not be doing the same.

Which, at least in my walk with Him thus far, has seemed to be one of the most glaring table flips yet.

How?

Because anymore I look around at those having fun and feeling good and enjoying that commonest of all common tasks of enjoying their lives and doing so with tons of friends and they with whom they share what sure seem to be so many clearly pleasurable experiences and I just wonder how they do it. I find myself struggling to understand that obviously normal approach to life here in which folks just do whatever they want to do without giving any of it a second thought.

I literally had a pretty impressive argument with myself just yesterday after I drove my mom and sister to get them some donuts, something I’ve not myself had in years since changing my diet and starting to exercise and losing a bunch of weight and realizing that eating fried food wrecks my stomach. But while standing in that little donut shop gazing upon all the varied glistening glazings whilst wrapped in the smell of freshly made enjoyment, I realized that everything in the clear cabinets looked really good and too how much I’d really like to have one.

Didn’t get one as I just can’t bring myself to crawl back over that wall that I’ve built.

But I sure wrestled with the want for a good long while, an arguing eventually ending in my being ashamed of myself for even contemplating the idea of having something I might have enjoyed.

Because I don’t look at life anymore as a means to enjoyment. I don’t consider my time here to be best spent doing those things which are pleasing. Rather I consider my time here, and thus my life too, to be only best spent rather void of such things as pleasure and enjoyment and even friendship.

Indeed, I’ve come to quite enjoy how lonely I often am.

Why?

Because I shudder to think that I might accidentally happen to find anything inside this life as is lived inside this world that I might like enough to one day find it was my reward.

I want the best of my life later in that part that’s promised to never end. And so I’ll continue welcoming the worst of life, the hardest of life, the most miserable and lonely and empty and bland, boring, utterly mundane and monotonous existence possible while I’m here.

Just don’t want to risk it.

Risk what?

That whole “anyone on whom it falls will be crushed” part of what is the promise of how our every experiencing of Judgment Day’s coming will be going.

No, I’ll rather opt for the former, that option in which it’s promised that “anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.” Because, well, being broken to pieces at least leaves you with pieces of what was once whole, pieces that surely a Carpenter can put back together. And, well, being crushed just doesn’t have that same sort of hope. For even the Greek words used in the original translations, συνθλασθήσεται (broken to pieces) and λικμήσει (crushed), clearly denote the same difference.

For the Greek word ‘συνθλασθήσεται’, meaning broken to pieces, it’s just that, it’s something broken, shattered, left then in pieces. But ‘λικμήσει’ on the other hand refers to something being all but ground to a power. And, well, powder is much hard to put back together than pieces.

I’ll take being broken to pieces rather than being crushed into powder.

And yet what’s rather ironic, or at least I think it is, is that it’s promised to be same Stone which accomplishes both. What stone?

Jesus. For, as we read here, He is “the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.”

And why then are the only two possible outcomes being either broken or crushed? Because, well, we’ve all, since having rejected Him in preference of our own plans and priorities and perspectives and opinions and prerogatives, lived what have then been left to have become lives in which we ignore Him, refuse Him, reject Him, literally live as if He doesn’t. All of us have walked in this estimation of God being so small, so puny, so hopefully nonexistent thanks to our penchant for really enjoying those many things that His Word defines as sin, that we’ve thus come upon the conclusion that there is no Him.

That He’s not there. That neither God nor then Christ ever existed.

Why?

Because we know deep down that if He does, well, we’re done.

Why?

Because if there is a God who then did send His Son who did then die and that for our sins, each of which both demands and too deserves a death, a verdict we’ve both rejected and that as is proven in how much we still enjoy all that He’s told us is wicked and wrong, then His having seen all the messed up stuff that we’ve all learned to pretend that we’ve never done leaves us with nothing but His mercy to fall upon.

Which, granted, would allow us to find ourselves broken in what are pieces that could be put back together both eventually and that through what some claim a process called sanctification as is began via repentance in which we at first stop doing all the messed up stuff we’re doing and, in so doing, find ourselves with both time and opportunity to start doing those many better things that, again, His Word, He planned for us to do.

Problem is that, again, ain’t none of us want to be either broken nor then crushed.

Rather we want to have fun. We want to feel good in what are lives that then look good and that to those who themselves are clearly down here living lives that still look good to our fleshy side of what is a collective life in which basically all of everything that everyone does is only done to please the same. Which is what proves the necessity of both Judgment Day and the rather painful, in a humility way, problem that we will all face thereupon.

It’s that one day we’re all going to meet the Son, you know, the One we’ve all spent a good portion of our lives living as if He wasn’t? And, when we do, most here will do so as if meeting a stranger because they too rejected He who was intended to be the Cornerstone upon which everything we did, said, bought, sold, believed, became was meant to be built. And thus we’ll be found upon that day as those foolish builders who thus must have built on some other foundation thanks to their glaring refusal to do all things unto His glory.

All because we wanted, still want most of the time, said glory for ourselves only.

Even if in something as small as an old-fashioned donut, you know, those sour cream kind that are extra crunchy and covered with that delicious glaze that shines so sparkly.

Indeed, there are many things in and of this life as is lived in and mostly still of this world that ask we turn our attention, our intentions away from doing whatever it might be that we may believe better probably is. All of them so appealing, alluring because, well, we again want to enjoy our lives. We want to experience the best this world has to offer. We want to refuse ourselves nothing that may be in any possible way enjoyable or exciting or even entertaining.

And so this leaves us in a pretty obvious predicament:

Refuse ourselves the things we’d probably enjoy or refuse He who is the One who calls us explicitly to deny ourselves and take up our crosses and follow Him.

Thankfully we’ve always more than plenty of help making said decision thanks to all those around us who clearly consider the message of the cross to be foolishness, considering how none of us want to die but rather really want to enjoy our lives, and too that fact that we too know well how to think like that. Unfortunately none of this is going to come down to popular vote as rather God alone will have the final say and that upon that Day when it’s both finally and forever proven that He retained always the right to overrule whatever it was that we’ve collectively come to consider as being wrong.

Such as the call to humble ourselves unto the taking up of crosses and following Jesus out of here through the grave that He chose to turn into a gate unto eternal life.

A promise the vast majority of those here will continue rejecting because, again, we’re all living in a world clearly filled with so many opportunities to have fun and make friends and find ourselves then living what most folks would agree is the best a life can be.

My question is how do we know what’s the best a life can be considering all the other things we’ve all managed to think were good along the way to what’s probably come a day, many thereof, in which we discovered we were wrong?

For I once thought it best to spend my life eating nothing but junk and to do so whilst getting pretty much no physical activity but rather sitting/laying in bed playing video games or watching tv.

Wasn’t that big of a fan of weighing over 300 pounds and being ashamed of what I saw in the mirror and entirely not comfortable with I felt physically.

And, well, turns out I was on to something because I feel far better now having made all the changes I have since those days. Improvements made that have proven to me that, yeah, I was wrong to live the way I did back then.

Turns out that laziness and gluttony really are death!

Because, yeah, back then I felt dead inside. I hated my life. Hated myself. I had no purpose, no point in living. I was just existing and that upon the substance of Slim Jims and Madden on my xbox.

I can’t imagine living that way anymore. Much the same as I literally cannot fathom living life without the faith I have now. For I well remember those days back before I started caring. I remember all the apparent freedom I enjoyed and how it eventually convinced me that it was okay to steal things and to watch pornography and to hurt others without even thinking about it.

A life I lived rejecting clearly He who calls me to live as He created me which is in His image which is one of piety and personal responsibility and love and mercy and common dignity and basic morality.

All things I’ve refused, rejected, ignored.

In what eventually became a life I didn’t want to live anymore.

Because I got tired of feeling broken. I got tired of being empty. I got tired of having no hope, no purpose, no point in being here. And slowly He has started putting me back together in what is a work still ongoing and very much under way. But these days I have far more hope than I did back in that other life I lived.

Because today I can dare to think of Heaven as a place I might be welcomed someday instead of some place that I’m supposed to find here and that as fast as I can so that I can enjoy this life as much as possible. I don’t enjoy this life. I appreciate this life. I’m thankful for this life. But I’m also sorry for this life and so many of the things that I know I’ve done in it, with it, things that were clearly only able to be done because I was rejecting, ignoring, denying the Son.

I can’t do that anymore.

Why? Because I’ve spent plenty of time trying to build a life on everything else. I’ve sampled so much of all this world sells and, while good and fun and enjoyable, it’s all temporary. I know that for me the sweet taste of a fried donut will only turn into a stomach ache. I know that for me the ease and comfort of not working out will only leave me feeling weak and lazy. I know that were I to go back to giving into lust the rush would fade once again into a shame so deep that it made despair seem enjoyable.

I don’t want to feel that way anymore. Because I know full well what comes every time that I reject Him, ignore Him, even argue with Him.

It doesn’t end well.

Thankfully we’re given these lives to find that, to feel that for ourselves before forever begins and any and every chance at change is forever taken away.

Problem is that the world we’re in continues telling us that we’re better off to reject Jesus and ignore God and just keep on doing whatever we want to do. Indeed, the majority of folks here continue building their lives on everything that isn’t Christ. Why? Because, again, I think we all know that should we turn to Him that He would then turn our lives upside down. And, well, none of us want that. We don’t want our lives emptied of the many things we’ve come to enjoy. We don’t want to “go about like mourners before the Lord Almighty.”

No, we want to have fun. We want to feel good. We want to be proud of ourselves and all the things that we manage to accomplish. We want to show off our trophies and triumphs to all those around us who too think that we have something to win in this world.

We don’t want to consider that we’re going to both leave this world and thus lose everything here that we’ve come to love.

But we will.

And when we do there will be but one question asked:

Do we know Him and will He agree?

And, well, in simplicity the answer to that is simply no should we go unto that Day having spent our lives rejecting He who is the Christ who is the Cornerstone upon whom we’re all called to fall upon seeking His mercy to forgive what all we’ve done and His grace and patience to help us start doing better.

I understand that it’s hard for us to consider that we could do better whenever we’re so able to have fun and find pleasure. It’s made even harder when we discover that His definition of better is found in such things as humility and modesty and even self-control and personal responsibility. Those things don’t seem like much fun.

Thankfully the point was never to build our lives on the idea of having fun. The point was to build lives unto the promise of living forever.

Truth is that we’ve all rejected that truth long enough.

Question is will we ever stop rejecting it and start building our lives on it.

It’s clear that most here think themselves justified in continually rejecting Him. Doesn’t mean that He’s going to agree.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold