No Alternatives

Christ is truly all. All of creation exists for sake of His pleasure, His good will.

Yes, sin has worked corruption even in creation, even unto death, disease, suffering, and all manner of ill amongst men. Wretchedness, ever mounting in defiance against the God who reigns, alone...wreaking havoc, for ever having turned against Him.

And He has allowed it. He has allowed us to turn, many times and ways against knowledge and worship of Him. For now. Which, even millennia are as nothing, in context of the eternal.

We have, as a species, largely ever turned whole against Him by turning ever away from Him. Despite His entreaties. Despite the goodness surely lavished without measure, in the far-gone garden. Still, we wanted to be esteemed, apart from Him.

He, however, chose for Himself a people. A nation. In Abraham, Isaac. The nation of Israel. A people set apart to be holy, before Him.

And we, all who are and ever have existed...have turned even against God, no less than His own chosen people oft have. To such end that, even now, there are many who consider themselves followers of Christ yet denouncing the nation of Israel, from whom our Savior arose. And, who, also...God has not renounced.

He opened the gate to all the nations, to come to Him. Drawing a people which did not seek Him, nor desire to know Him. But Israel was not cast off.

Look at all He has done in delivering the nation, these past 60-some years. Impossible odds, and yet they gained ground rather than being snuffed out, in skirmishes expected to wholly destroy.

And many are coming to know Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. Even as certain prophecies involved in His coming could only have been fulfilled, for having come to pass before the destruction of the second temple. Even as it perhaps goes so much further than a mere corroboration of facts, in retrospect. Same as for any of us all.

He leads. He draws. He is sovereign.
We are not.

No matter the thoughts to the contrary. He is nothing less than absolutely sovereign.

Everything which is only exists as He has permitted and willed to be. Knowing from time eternal how all would and will be, He yet lavishes grace to many who still refuse to acknowledge His name.

But we cannot be that.
We must freely proclaim Him.

The world may mock, jeer, taunt, and attack...
...but He is our Rock, our Light, our Salvation, and the Strength in which we stand.

If we know Christ, we must not falter by returning to an attempt to stand in our own strength. We must not return to attempts to rationalize the incomprehensible, so as to make way for what otherwise would make sense to the world.

They will not understand because they do not know Him and choose not to know Him. His glories are displayed for all to see, and each of us had turned from worshipping Him. Each one of us. We are all guilty. His blood is on all our hands.

But yet some...some, He draws, even through their seeking unto truth...

...to come to see what wretchedness wrought, in that He perished under the weight of our sin, so that we would be free...we who come to Him, seeing the truth of His sacrifice and seeking forgiveness for our absolute wretchedness even unto Him, the only One who ever could or would not deserve such destruction. He bore it, though, that we might have life. He died, He bore our sins. He drank the cup of wrath, poured without measure from eternal unto eternal, that we who are finite and sin-sick who come lamenting our wickedness in light of His love...seeking deliverance, forgiveness, and atonement...

...would be saved.

He overcame, after all. Death could not hold Him. He threw off captivity, making mockery of the powers of the world even by His death on the cross. Death could not hold Him. He resurrected. He took captivity captive. And is esteemed, the exalted One, who now and forever reigns over all of creation.

Our feebleness is nothing, compared to His might. We are weak, but He is strong. We are flighty and inconstant, but He is eternal and faithful. We are forever batted about by changing circumstance, within and without, but He is unchanging, immovable, transcendent. We may strive unto perfection, but only ever know what slight a bit might be comprised of that within any the lines of a finite life, whereas He alone can change the heart of men, turning even a soul from darkness and despair unto light and love. Freedom is His. We are captives even to our own nature, only able to respond according to patterns known, recognized, perceived, desired, or ingrained...except that He change us, bring life into deadened souls, turn death to life within us who ever so despise Him, then to love and worship Him, alone.

Above all. As all else then is seen merely to be subject to His will.

We are His creation. He is our God.

Christ, the living Son of God, is our only means of salvation from the wrath we are due, for having hardened hearts which cherish sin and despise the Maker. Even to be in His presence, unchanged, undesirous of righteousness, would drive a man bent on sin quite mad, enraged and utterly consumed with loathing beyond comprehension. Such a mind would be utterly consumed by such inflamed rage as would utterly demolish any of what erstwhile vestiges of grace had otherwise seemed present.

Christ offered Himself as the only means of restoration from that fallen state of despondent self-consumption, exalted contemptuously against the Maker. He lived without sin, fully overcoming all the wiles of the world in abject devotion to the Father, guided wholly by the Spirit of Truth into all good works prepared by the Father, wholly devoted in humility to unwavering love to God and fellow man. He loved as none other had nor has. He loves, still, as none other could.

And He loves us.

He said that he has loved us even as the Father has loved Him. How consuming a love, then? How absolute? Unwavering. Eclipsing. Wholly true and absolute. And we are to remain in His love, even as loving all others.

These are products of His work of redemption, in us.

We cannot love as He loved, as He loves, except that He change us...except that we came to know His love, in truth, through coming to know Him, in spirit and truth. At which point, all else really does fall pale, in comparison.

As it must.

He is truth, so as Paul said, then let every man be a liar, if they would exalt themselves against knowledge of God. Because He is truth, so any which exalts itself against Him is a lie.

If we walk the line of attempting to reason with lies, except that the Lord lead, we could just as easily fall prey. The case for Christ is one which is a statement of truth, even as it can be pleaded admirably and with or without eloquence and appeal to any of all the higher and baser functions of man. But, point of it all, regardless the phrasing or the elocution...He is and He lives.

Lives even to plead for us, who are His. Without ceasing. Even as He did, before the final showing of His might. He did not succumb to pain. He did not succumb to bitterness. He did not succumb to resentment. He did not succumb to reluctance. He did not succumb to regret. As it was given knowledge that the Father's will would be done, He walked humbly, steadfast in acceptance, even to death, death on the cross. He did not succumb to fear. He walked humbly, pure. Solely giving.
Walking according to what was given.

Knowing.

Loving.

Given.

Steadfast in His acceptance of the Father's will.
Even having become sin, though He committed none...but that we who have sinned might have His righteousness.

And reverberations of His story permeate all of history, in varied perversions. Even as the stars which once fully proclaimed His coming have also become a different tale, given over to the teaching of demons which otherwise would purport to good will and prosperity, who otherwise are rather only seeking to destroy.

But Christ...

Jesus is our only hope. He is the only hope. Period.
All else is false. All else is paltry, falling short of fulfillment--leaving room for rage, greed, lust, fear, anxiety, despair, and all manner of that which else disposes man listless and powerless, apart from God.

And yet, He prays for us. He intercedes on our behalf.
His portion has been secured. He will see us through. Nothing can nor will it take us from His hand.
He is God and cannot be countermanded.

It's not as with us, who reserve prerogative to change our minds as circumstances shift. No, not as that, at all.

He does not change. Will not alter.
He is who He is, and will do as He has said.

No one else is trustworthy.
Except that He is the foundation upon which we build our being and from which we strive to maintain composure and growth...we labor in vain.

Seek to know Him.
Seek to know Jesus.
Cry out to Him daily.
Seek time to delve into Scripture, striving to grasp His will.
Seek Him in prayer.
Seek Him.

He is all, in all.
Yet our hearts have so long been turned to self and away, against Him...it's as though we would nearer recognize a foreign tongue than recognize the truth of Christ.
So the cry must be continual, for Him to come, to change us, to make us as He is.

Strive to walk with Him.

Being the end and beginning of all of creation, in whom all things subsist and from whom all things originate...

...what else is there, truly, but to seek Him?

All else is a passing dream.
Not to be despised or forsaken, in terms of walking uprightly before God, no...

...but just to be ever so much so submitted unto Him, as done to His glory, whether of physical necessity or familial good.

He knows our needs, yet we are to seek Him for them, no less.
Even as we do what must be, so as to maintain what would be done, so not to fall away from diligent pursuit of His righteousness. In all ways, walking blameless before God and man.

So that even despised for Christ, yet no fault may else be found.
Walking in love.