Even If i Walk Alone

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

Archives for December 2009

Know Your Enemy

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One of the biggest keys to living a life devoted to Christ is to have a clear picture of who our enemy is. You can’t live a victorious life if you don’t know who it is you need to defeat. While it is easy to think of the phrase “life is a battle” as being simply a romantic analogy, it is actually a fundamental truth of Christianity. We are engaged in battle twenty-four hours a day as we seek to live passionately for our Savior.

First, let’s make it clear who your enemy is not. Anything made up of flesh and blood is not your enemy. People are never the enemy. How could we possibly perceive any human being to be our enemy when Christ told us to love every one? Therefore, I submit that it is not possible to love your enemy because if you consider another human to be your enemy, then you do not love that person. I think what Jesus meant when He said to “love your enemy” in Luke chapter 6, was to have no enemies. It is consistent with scripture when we see that Christ did not treat those who would kill Him as His enemies. He knew who was behind their actions as evidenced by His requesting the Father to forgive the people killing Him because “they did not know what they were doing” (Luke 23:33-34). We first need to make the shift in our hearts of transforming our enemies into friends so that we can love them; we need to always see others as Jesus saw them. Satan loves to distract us and to shift our focus onto other humans. We blame other people for our mistakes or our circumstances. We cannot do this and love those same people, which is why we cannot consider anyone to be our enemies while at the same time say that we are followers of Christ. Jesus did not treat humans as enemies; He treated them as friends.

No, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but rather against spiritual forces. Yes, demons really do exist, and yes they can and do impact your life. Perhaps this is where the old “the devil made me do it” excuse came from. The devil cannot make you do anything; he or his demons can put the temptations in place to make you consider doing something, but only we – as creatures gifted with freewill – actually can choose to act on that choice. As a holiday season is upon us, perhaps it needs to be said that Santa Claus is not the enemy of Christmas, but rather it is the spirit of greed and selfishness. The Easter Bunny is not the enemy of Easter, but rather the spirit of denying the resurrection of Christ. Other nationalities are not our enemy throughout the year, but rather the spirit of pride, hate and covetousness. Demonic forces are persistently trying to shift our focus away from the good things of Christ and onto the ruinous things of self. Christ died to not only bring forgiveness for our sins but in doing so He defeated Satan and his demonic forces. He gives us the power to do the same. The good news is that the end of the story is already written and Christ, along with those who profess Him as Lord, will be victorious in the spiritual realm. While we are still on earth, however, the battle rages on.

Don’t mistake who it is that we are fighting. Don’t allow Satan to shift your focus onto the wonders of creation as being your enemy. Our fight is always against the spiritual realm, against Satan. We wage war against those forces by making Jesus the Lord of our life, doing those things he modeled for us and in so doing demonstrate His love to all of His creation. Be careful not to get caught up in actions or arguments that only advance a flesh and blood agenda. Engage only in those things that advance the Kingdom agenda. Love God and all of His creation and demonstrate that love in tangible ways every day that you have breath.

What Am I Supposed To Do With My Life?

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Are you fully utilizing your gifts? You have been uniquely equipped and created to accomplish specific tasks. Are you pursuing those tasks? I know one of the hardest questions people deal with is “what am I supposed to do with my life?” We spend countless hours, read book after book and even attend seminars to help us determine what we are to do with our life. After all, if we are created to accomplish specific tasks, how do we determine what those tasks actually are? It can seem very frustrating.

Regular readers know I’m not going to leave you hanging. You might even expect some new insight to help you determine what to do. But I have even better news… you already have within you the knowledge of what you are meant to do with your life! What are you passionate about? What is the one thing (or perhaps even multiple things) that you absolutely love to do? What is it that you could do all day and time would just fly by? These are your gifts. God has entrusted them to you that you might use them to further His mission. Every gift has a Kingdom purpose, a purpose that can be used by God to draw others to Him.

So if you’re with me so far, perhaps you have some idea of what your gifts are but you are probably still wondering how that relates to the work or tasks you were created to accomplish. I certainly don’t pretend to have any special insight into your life or circumstances, but I do know an undeniable truth: if you passionately practice the gifts God has given you, the tasks will become evident all on their own. By being available to be used and faithful to use your God-given gifts, the things you are meant to accomplish will simply become obvious. I know it sounds pretty simple compared to most of those books and seminars, but if you haven’t noticed, imperfect people (that would be folks like you and me) tend to overcomplicate the very simple message of Jesus.

There is no magic formula, no untapped fount of wisdom from which to draw out your life goals. God has already put everything you need inside of you. It is up to us to be faithful and use that with which He has blessed us. So take an accounting of your gifts. You more than likely are already aware of the things you are passionate about. Do those things, and do them often. Just as a musician must practice countless hours to hone his craft, we must practice to master the use of our gifts. We have been given the raw talent, and it is now up to us to use, refine and master that talent. Fortunately, God is a patient teacher and will always be by our side encouraging and instructing. As we become skilled at using our talents as we exercise our passions, God will undoubtedly use those very actions to glorify Himself. Don’t squelch your passions and in doing so waste your life. Practice your passion, use your gifts and live an extraordinary life of devotion to Jesus.

Doing Christmas Jesus Style

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I’m ashamed to admit that I have spent far too many hours in my life debating the usual “Christian” Christmas arguments: Jesus vs. Santa, Santa Clause or Satan Claus, and of course Christmas vs. x-mas. I was brought up to believe these were battles that we Christians had to fight; if we didn’t fight, the non-Christians would succeed in removing Christ from Christmas. I have to wonder what part of Christ’s nature we were demonstrating as we were zealously cramming our opinions down someone else’s throat. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that many of you have had these same arguments, or perhaps you still engage in them. There is, after all, something about seeing a “Merry X-Mas” sign that makes ones blood boil. How we respond is vital to our ultimate goal of following the way of Jesus. When we engage others in these types of conversations, are we demonstrating love toward them? Are we making it clear that God highly values them, that Christ died for them? Or are we simply concerned with winning the argument? What are our motives in iscussions such as these? Is it righteous anger or self-righteous one-upmanship?

I submit that regardless of our motives, we are missing the point entirely by engaging in these arguments. Let’s put aside the fact that research seems to indicate that Jesus was born in the middle of summer, making it kind of a moot point to become indignant that people aren’t celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th. Instead, regardless of why someone might be celebrating Christmas, how about if we simply embraced the season to shower gifts of love on everyone we meet? Yes, we should be doing this year round, but let’s face it, if you’re like me you often struggle mightily with this. We can brightly reflect the glory of God simply by living like our King. While others grumble and make snide remarks while waiting in a long line, let’s be the ones who smile, strike up positive conversations and perform little acts of kindness while you wait with everyone. Don’t be superficial, show genuine interest in the story of those around you. When driving in traffic (particularly the smash up derby lanes around the local mall), have patience and let others cut in front of you and even {gasp} let the other car have that parking space. You aren’t letting people walk all over you. Rather, you are allowing the love of Christ to flow through you. Take the time to smile and engage each cashier you deal with. Believe me; they are probably having a worse day than you are! It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and insanity of the season. Remember that this is not the time to join forces with the enemy, but rather to dutifully demonstrate the difference Christ can make in the life of another.

This year, let’s do Christmas differently. Let’s not get caught up in the petty and ultimately meaningless arguments that always come about this time of year. Let’s demonstrate the love of God to everyone we meet. Let’s care for the needs of those less fortunate than us. Let’s not focus on what others may define Christmas to be, and instead demonstrate what the gift of Jesus means to your life and what He can mean to theirs. Do Christmas different this year; do it Jesus style.

Attitude is Everything

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Personal development pioneer Paul J. Meyer passed away recently. He lived an amazing life and powerfully impacted many with his contagious enthusiasm and zest for life. Paul’s mantra was “Attitude is everything”, and I was reminded this week how true this is for we who seek to model our life after Jesus Christ.

It’s so easy to become distracted by the problems and concerns of our daily lives. We feel battered and stressed out from the difficult times that come into our lives. When we allow ourselves to get caught up in our problems, we take our eyes off of Jesus and put them on our self. When our eyes are on ourselves, we no longer are able to love those around us. One of the primary goals of Satan is to see that we become self –absorbed. Once he achieves that result, we are rendered essentially useless.

That’s why attitude is everything. We have eternal hope in Jesus Christ; we have more reason to celebrate than anyone. We must always remain focused on the glory of Christ and the mission He has enlisted us to carry out. Jesus is the creator of all things, and He created all things in extraordinary fashion. We are therefore, by default, extraordinary. Living a self-centered ordinary life is to reject all that we are and all we have been created to be. Extraordinary people do not live a life of mediocrity; they do not live a life devoted to their own needs. Extraordinary people live lives larger than themselves, lives dedicated to a higher purpose.

One more time, attitude is everything. As followers of Christ, we have the highest hope and we must never allow that hope to be diminished. We know how this story ends. We also know that there are many in this world without that same hope. It is our mission as Kingdom people to demonstrate the love of Christ by sharing that hope with them. When we get down, we are being ordinary. God did not create ordinary. God created extraordinary and we grieve Him whenever we neglect that which He created us to be.

The next time life begins to get the best of you, change your attitude. The next time you become discouraged or feel alone, reflect on who God created you to be. Reach inside and find that person because it exists in every one of us. We are extraordinary when we choose an attitude of love and devotion to Jesus Christ. Be extraordinary. Attitude is everything.

The Importance of Goals

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I wrote recently about moving toward your goals. Hopefully by now you have written down some goals for yourself. If not, I’d encourage you to stop right now and write down three goals for yourself… just come back when you’re done, we’ll wait! Need some help? If you could change anything about your present life, what would it be? Write it down. What do you perceive to be the greatest weakness in your pursuit of following Jesus? Write this down as well. Finally, for what do you wish to be remembered? Again, write it down. You now have three very specific goals. Congratulations, you have done more to reach your goals than have 97% of Americans, simply because you wrote down your goals.

You’ve taken the all important first step to achieving your goals. Now for the hard part: you actually are going to have to do some work to accomplish them. The first thing is to break them down into manageable size chunks, small steps that are challenging but not so daunting that you are afraid to even attempt them. So if you could change anything about your present life, what would it be? Just pick one thing. What habit would you like to stop, or perhaps what is one habit you would like to have? Let’s work out a practical example. Perhaps you wanted to start each day by praying or reading your Bible or simply sitting in silence. What are some small steps you can begin doing to make this a reality? You could perhaps start by going to bed five minutes earlier each night, or getting up five minutes earlier each morning. Do this for a week, then tack on another five minutes until you are able to get up at the time you wish in order to be able to start your day communing with God. Getting up thirty minutes or an hour earlier than you do now is a daunting task, one that you will probably quit after a day or two (if not before you even begin). On the other hand, going to be five minutes early is pretty easy. Tackle your large goals by taking small steps.

By defining the person we want to be – in writing – we set ourselves up for success in becoming that person. Do something every day that moves you toward your goals, review them often. Put notes around your house that remind you of the person you are becoming. Don’t put up reminders that describe the person you want to be, display it as if it were already true. For example, don’t write “I wish I had the courage to serve God no matter what”. Rather write down “I serve God at any cost”. Place note cards throughout your home that will remind you who you are. This will help keep you motivated and ultimately see that your goals are indeed fulfilled. With New Year’s Day fast approaching, we don’t need any more resolutions. What we need instead is written down goals. The ultimate goal is to become the person we were created to be. Don’t rob the world of all you have to offer simply because you were too lazy to set goals for your life. You were created with purpose and for a purpose. Write down your goals, break them down into smaller pieces, and see your goals through. Realize the love God has for you and work in concert with Him to create the symphony of your life.