Even If i Walk Alone

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

Archives for February 2016

Selfless

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Are you selfless? I’m not talking about being a person who readily helps others. That’s part of it, sure. But a truly selfless disciple has forsaken everything for the love and mission of Jesus. When we are selfless, we no longer think of ourselves. We think of Jesus, and we think of how we might reflect Him to others. Society does everything it can to convince you life is all about you. You deserve to have nice things, a nice place to live, a good job, and a sense of safety; you deserve to be comfortable.

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Except you don’t. As I’ve said before, what you (and me) deserve is to spend eternity separated from our Creator. We spend the bulk of our days in abject rebellion to our professed “Lord”. We deserve nothing good. But our selfishness convinces us it’s not true. We listen to society and live selfish instead of selfless lives.

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Abundant Living

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When we have surrendered ourselves to the purposes for which God created us to do, we are as willing to be deprived of our personal dreams and happiness as we are to celebrate them. I think it’s a key to knowing whether or not we have fully committed our lives to Jesus. Are we as happy when our dreams are taken from us as when we are excelling in them?

abundant living,surrender,commitment,discipleship,Matthew 28:19-20,Hebrews 13:5,John 14:16,Matthew 6:25-34,Hebrews 13:5,Jeremiah 33:3,John 14:12

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When we understand the character of God, we will comprehend our fullest, happiest, and most enjoyable life comes from being fully alive in His presence, regardless of what circumstances may be swirling around us. There is a confident peace and comfort when we have given ourselves fully to Christ.

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Are You Doing Enough?

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A question I often ask myself is, “Am I doing enough?” I’m not talking about earning our way to Heaven by trying to do enough good things (impossible, by the way). But having been given such a great gift from God, we have the responsibility to respond. He has lavished so much upon us it is inconceivable to then go through our lives wanting to give nothing in return.

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We can’t pay back God, but we certainly can demonstrate our gratefulness through our obedient actions. With that in mind, ask yourself, “Are you doing enough?” What is our honest answer to that question?

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Reverse the Curse

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When did we start believing the idea was to live in as much comfort and enjoying as much pleasure as we possibly can until our time comes to die? It’s nowhere in the Bible. In fact in the very first pages we see that sort of Utopian existence destroyed and our planet cursed with the sin which had been invited in. In the beginning, it was all about God. Nothing has changed.

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It is still all about God. Except somehow, somewhere along the way, we began to think it’s all about us. We were created to worship God, but what most of us ever worship is ourselves. We put it in much more congenial terms like, “God wants me to be happy”, or the pathetic, “I deserve this”. It’s as if we think we can reverse the curse and live in our own self-created paradise.

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Minimalism

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I’ve been investigating the concept of minimalism a lot lately. For those not familiar with the idea, minimalism is essentially stripping your life to the essentials of things that add value or bring joy (for a great expansion on this topic, see Joshua Becker’s article, “What is Minimalism?”). The reason I mention it here is I believe minimalism ties in directly to being a disciple of Jesus. In fact, I would argue Jesus Himself was a minimalist. Minimalism is consistent with Christ’s teaching to sell your possessions and give to the poor (Matthew 19:16-22).

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It aligns with the fact Jesus had no home of His own (Matthew 8:19-20), with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), and with His instructions in the well-known parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46). You don’t have to become a minimalist to be a disciple of Jesus, but if you are serious about living as He did, I believe you will be drawn towards minimalism.

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