There is no such thing as mildly living on the outskirts of chaos, just as you cannot be slightly, purely white. The gift of salvation from Jesus Christ re frames our existence. With the Holy Spirit we have access to the mind of God. We have the Words of God to base our decisions. We have the gift of God that we can accept to ensure our eternal salvation. Every Christian is commanded to spread the Gospel using their own gifts and talents. When the enemy attacks God's children he uses the same tactics he has chosen since the beginning of time. Confusion and diversion. Confusion about the character of God. Diversion from the mission He has charged us to complete. Black and White.
The greatest threat to our failure to complete our mission is within each one of us. It is our own propensity to settle for the temporary and lose sight of the eternal. When we love the created more than the Creator, our hearts will never be satisfied. C.S. Lewis said this about our desires, "It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." I would humbly add that we are also too easily deceived. Our imagination fails us at the point of trying to conceive the eternity that is coming for us all. It is only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we truly love the way Jesus commands us to love. And that consuming love will keep us free from the snares of the enemy.
"So Jesus again said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." John 10: 7-10
In closing, life is unbelievably short, complicated and painful. I believe that God is the only hand pulling us out of the chaos of our own creation. We must live our lives with the ambition of less personal satisfaction and more willful obedience. Jesus said if we love Him, we will obey Him. The combination of our devotion and His power to advance His Kingdom is unstoppable. Let's use the knowledge of our reality to live a life of reflection, purpose and passion. Jonathan Edwards said it best, "True knowledge consists of the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God." Only with the marriage of our will to His Sovereign Nature can our lives be eternally successful.
