Even If i Walk Alone

Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus

What Keeps You from Being an Effective Christian?

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What keeps you from being an effective Christian? It’s a question we all ask ourselves at some point in our walk. We want to be more consistent, more bold, and more useful to God in His Kingdom. No one surrenders to the Lordship of Christ and then endeavors to live out their days in mediocrity.

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But mediocrity is where so many believers, once full of fire and zeal for the gospel, live their lives. Why is that? What gets in the way of living a life worthy of our calling as disciples of Jesus (Ephesians 4:1)? If we can identify the problems, it can help us be alert to the tactics of the enemy and not fall for His tricks over and over again (2 Corinthians 2:11).

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Every Careless Word

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Jesus said each of us will have to account for every careless word we speak (Matthew 12:36-37). No small, careless, or flippant word is small, careless or flippant to God. He hears and judges everything that comes out of our mouths. The Lord is holy, consistent, and always intentional (1 Peter 1:15–16).

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He demands the same from us (Matthew 5:48). Jesus didn’t waste words, but used every syllable to point people to the truth about who He was and to the majesty of His Father (John 12:49–50). The beautiful and cutting words of Jesus are life to all who will believe (John 6:63), but the foolish and wicked things we say and do result in our destruction (John 5:28–29).

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Seizing the Moment

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Are we as the Church seizing the moment before us? As I survey all the evil, mental issues, and despair in the world, I have to wonder if we are shining the light we have into such a dark and desperate place. Too many Christians are content with being in the club and see no reason to shake things up or draw attention to themselves. Christianity is not a social club, it’s a war zone.

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Our Sunday gatherings should be a respite from the battlefront where we recharge and gain more tooling to fight the battles we will encounter the moment we walk out those doors. I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I see. What I see are megaplexes with circus sideshows built for entertainment of the masses. I see leaders more concerned with appearing relevant than rescuing souls from the clutches of Hell.

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A High Bar

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One recent afternoon, I was conversing with a close friend of mine who is not a follower of Christ. I would peg him as agnostic, but he is a thoughtful and intelligent man, so while he disagrees with my faith, we can have civil and rational discussions about it. In the conversation, he surprised me with a comment that was both blunt and telling. He said his problem with Christianity was the forgiveness issue.

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He said he could never sacrifice his own son, and his feeling is that instead of forgiving mankind, God should raise the bar and demand more from us. I thought he was going to say he struggled with forgiveness so couldn’t conceive of God forgiving us, but he went another direction. He considers a high bar a better solution than a merciful gift.

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God Is Our Portion

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In a world that obsesses over always having more, we must always remember that God is our portion (Lamentations 3:24). We don’t need the trinkets and baubles of this life. We don’t need fame, success, or notoriety. All we need is Jesus (John 6:35). Jeremiah knew his very existence was because of God’s faithful love (Lamentations 3:22).

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No matter how desperate the situation or circumstances, the prophet rested in the goodness of God. Many centuries later, the Apostle Paul would echo those same sentiments when he wrote that God would supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19). Faithful men of God throughout history have understood what we have forgotten: we need nothing else in life but God Himself (Psalm 73:25).

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