"Equality"

 "Come... and let us make a name for ourselves". Genesis 11:4.

Jesus and the Apostle Paul are truly synchronised when it comes to defining what makes you and I both worthy of value and how that value is evidenced.

You are deemed of incredible worth because God bestows unceasing love upon us (Romans 5:8, John 10:11), and the consequence of such love is genuine freedom (Galatians 5:1, John 8:36).

The scope of such a splendour is so rich, eternity itself will barely prove long enough to evidence the unfolding of such joy (hence, the joy we know know is but a foretaste of what is to come, something the Apostle Peter is alluding to in 1 Peter 1:8 - a complete joy... full of 'glory').

The trouble now is that there are always those who want to lower that bar and make such heights something less comprehensive in what they(and, as a consequence, we) embrace.

Today equality has become the goal... all of us, everywhere continually living by the same imposed requirements, seeing all of our lives determined by those boundaries, so that all are thereby defined as "equal".

As we watch another batch of requirements role out from those in power to reach the 'safety' of this all-encompassing end, we no doubt pause and reflect on everything that has now been lost to push and press everyone into this ubiquitous shoe-box. Was it really our role to 'protect' the national health service in the UK? What will that program in reality amount to in the years ahead? Why are we continually harangued with the message that even those "without symptoms" of a virus can infect others when it's a lie, and why will pharmaceutical corporations now be able to inject us with 'tweaked' vaccines without them being properly trialed because the variant forms of the virus are so 'different' from their original form (when they're not), but the vaccines only have to be slightly adjusted, apparently, so no need for new testing?

It's so, of course, because we're all treated equally... and our behaviour, our compliance, our very thinking, adds to that unquestionable goal.

Like the masses slaving at babel, we're in effect "making bricks" for the good of a purpose that is, on examination, a killing joke... quite literally to those conforming to its obligations (socially, economically, physically and psychologically), crippling yet desirable to those requiring our... 'equality'.

How do we begin to remedy this misery?

Imagine an order where the cornerstone of what unfolds in respect to policy is genuine service and not power. 

This turns our eyes towards another kingdom.

It's when we place the present "program" on pause, at least in our own thoughts and intentions, and begin to consider the radiance and enduring weight of what Jesus and His Apostles are describing in what we touched on to begin with that we see just how feeble this present scheme is in respect to its aims, in spite of the often chilling 'efficiency' of its methods.

The calling of the saints is into a corpus defined not by the 'official' requirements of this moment, but by the Lord enthroned before the 'foundation of the world' (Ephesians 1:4) - it is this certainty that secures our being made holy and blameless, because His love alone provides and prepares all that is necessary to fulfil this divine desire (verses 3&4). Redemption by the royal blood of Jesus Christ heals us from all wounds, diseases and transgressions, because it brings about our adoption into this particular and vital citizenship, granting us the perception to know and understand that the fulness of heaven and earth, of creation and completion, is only evidenced now in the hope of where this security is taking those secured by such a hope (verses 7-14).

As the days we inhabit become darkened by the demand for more and more conformity to a vision of a race fastened to the torture of being far less than they are intended to be, let us raise our view to the one Jesus and His fellow ministers furnish for us in the good news of the Gospel - there is the anchor that will hold us fast in this present violence to body and soul.