Even If i Walk Alone

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

Daily Life

Picking and Choosing

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When determining how to live out our faith in Christ, it seems we can get very selective about which parts of the Bible we will choose to apply to our lives. We relish the parts that tell us how much God loves us, so we’ll definitely emphasize His love in our lives. Everyone likes to be loved, so we’ll even share that love with others. The book of Proverbs tells us that if we keep God first in our life then He will guide our steps. I’ll take that one as well, because who wouldn’t want a little direction? I really like the part where Jesus says that all who come to Him will find rest; He followed that up later by telling us He would send His Holy Spirit to be a comforter and a counselor for us. There is no doubt that these are overwhelming benefits, ones that few would ever turn down. As icing on the cake, we also get to spend eternity with Jesus in Heaven. It’s no wonder that Christianity is attractive to so many, and indeed it is a great mystery as to why so many reject it.

Then there are those other, more pesky passages of Scripture that we’d rather just pretend did not exist. We’re happy to accept the good stuff, the things that make our own lives happier and more pleasurable. But what about the Scriptures that tell us to go out into the entire world telling others about Jesus? We recoil and assume these words are for those odd, super-spiritual missionary types who were apparently born with a slide projector in their hands. We defer to mystical words like “calling” to rationalize away why those passages don’t apply to us. Truthfully, most of us do not even dare to go out into our own neighborhoods proclaiming the glory of Christ, much less into the entire world.

There are other passages that tell us we must take up our cross if we would follow Christ. I don’t normally wake up looking for an excuse to carry around an instrument of torture and death. Those words must be for those in other countries who live under oppressive governments. Being born in America or other free parts of the world, we are happy to believe that we don’t have to endure persecution because of our beliefs. Of course we still have to deal with the parts of Scripture that tell us if we follow Christ we must forsake our family, risk being homeless, and sell everything we own and give the proceeds to the poor. Again, those words are for other folks, not for us. We’re good with the peace, joy and love stuff.

We cannot pick and choose which parts of the Bible we will follow if we are serious about being a follower of Christ. Jesus gave up everything for us, and He demands the same in return. Each one of us is called to forsake our families, to sell what we have to care for the poor, to give up our safety and security, and to endure trials and persecution as we go throughout the world telling others about the love and glory of our great King. To accept only certain parts of Jesus’ teaching is to reject them all. No one is exempt from any part of His suffering, just as no one is overlooked by any measure of His blessing. Each one of us is gifted in different ways, and how we live out our calling will look different from person to person. The calling, however, is the same, regardless of its manifestation. We all are called to suffer, to go and to tell. The goal of our lives, the reason we were created, is so that we might demonstrate the glory of God to others. We cannot pick and choose our way through the Bible. We must embrace it all if we are to grasp what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If we give everything to Him, He will not fail to pour out all of His love, mercy and grace on each of us. He longs to give us all that He is, but this requires that we give Him all that we are. We were created for the glory of God, and if we would receive that glory in full, then we must pour out our lives for Him. There is no half way in total devotion. We are all called to one mission. Let’s live it fully.

Surrender

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We can do nothing without Jesus. As long as we presume that we can, we will live a life of disappointment and failure. Our best effort on our best day will fall short of the smallest thing we can do through the power of Christ. Until we fully surrender every aspect of our lives to Him, we will have no idea what we can truly accomplish.

Most of us have grand designs and dreams for our lives. We are taught to strive to be whatever we should desire. Whatever we might accomplish in this world on our own will be tempered by a gnawing feeling that we are still missing something. Money can buy neither love nor acceptance. For a true follower of Jesus, worldly achievement will never fulfill the deepest desires of our souls. The only way to succeed in life is to surrender all that we are to Him. We have to let Him know that He can have everything that He has blessed us with: friends, family and all the accumulated “stuff”. Nothing means anything apart from Jesus.

When we surrender everything to Him we will begin to see the world in a new way. The things we used to find interesting or important will no longer have any hold on us. We will start to see the world as Jesus does. Instead of selfishly devoting our time to things that bring us pleasure and satisfaction, we will become people who take pleasure in doing things that bring glory to God. We are called to glorify Him in everything that we do. This daunting task is possible only to those who have surrendered their lives to Him. Surrender means no longer living for ourselves in any way. Everything we do must be with Him in mind; no more self-serving endeavors, no more mindless drifting, no more wasting time. As Thoreau wrote, As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” Indeed, any time not spent serving Christ is time that another soul potentially dies without knowledge of Jesus. The world is dying all around us; we have no time to waste. If we don’t show them the love of Christ, then who will?

We have to let go of the lie. We have to realize that we have no control of our life. We are either ruled by Christ or led by Satan. Jesus didn’t leave room for any sort of gray area. We are for Him or we are against Him. If we are truly for Him then we will fully surrender to Him; this is what He demands. For too long we have been content to give lip service to our devotion to Christ but live our lives as we see fit. Time has run out for Sunday morning Christians. What the world needs are Christ followers who have surrendered their lives fully to Jesus, people whose sole purpose is to reflect the love and glory of God to the world. We are called to be the Kingdom of God here on earth. We cannot be the Kingdom until we let go of all that we hold dear; we must drop everything until all we have left is Jesus and His power.

By surrendering to Him and admitting that we are powerless without Him, we will begin to live the life we were intended to live. Let us seek His power to first change ourselves and then let His glory shine through so that we might demonstrate His love to everyone and positively affect change in our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, our state, our country and ultimately our world. It all begins when we surrender our own lives to Him. From that small choice, that one conscious decision, we begin to fulfill our mission. Through His power we will change the world.

Is Jesus Enough?

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Is Jesus enough for you? If there was nothing else, no Heaven, no eternal life, just Jesus, would He be enough? Is the fact that He gave His life for you, suffered the pain of the nails for you, and drank in the depravity of your sin, enough to secure your devotion to Him? Do we want Jesus or do we simply want the good things that are promised to those who follow Him? Living your life as a follower of Jesus will surely bring with it a large share of very bad days. We live in a fallen world where the consequences of generations of sinfulness continue to compound with devastating results. We get sick, loved ones die and children suffer because of our choices and the ones made by those who came before us. Through it all we cling to Jesus, desperate for answers, despairing for hope. Would we continue to hold tightly to Him if there was no reward? Would we still love Him if there was nothing in it for us save for the love He gives in return?

We have been taught to evangelize, to tell others about Him so that we might have a hand in keeping their souls from Hell. We tell people they need Jesus so they can go to Heaven. We talk in terms of “saving” people and “adding people to the Kingdom”. Heaven becomes the goal and the reason for coming to Jesus. This misses the point of the relationship God intends for us to have with Him. He sent Jesus to redeem us because of His love for us, so that in turn, we would glorify Him through our love for Jesus. Our entire purpose for living, the whole point of coming to Jesus, is that we might show the Glory of God to the world. We were created to do good works for Jesus so that those who don’t know Him might come to see His beauty and His love. We are called to reflect the light of God to an oppressively dark world. Hope is found in the light, and the glory of God is light for the world.

We are culturally predisposed to give something to get something. When we give our lives to Jesus, the only thing we should be interested in “getting” is the opportunity to demonstrate His glory to others. The whole of our intent, the entirety of our purpose, should be focused on reflecting His beauty to everyone we meet. We turn to Jesus because we become aware of how hopeless life is without Him. We recognize the incredible love He has for us, as demonstrated by His willingness to lay down His life for our sake. There is no life outside of Christ; His death on our behalf allows us to live in Him. What does Christ get in return? He gets the chance to glorify His father through His creation. The point of life on earth is to glorify God. Every word we say, every action we take, every thought we think brings with it the opportunity to glorify God and to recognize His amazing power. Every conversation we engage in is an occasion to tell someone else of God’s love and Holiness. We must always point to the glory of God in everything we do. It is for this we were created, and for this we must live.

Is the love of Jesus alone enough for you to follow Him? Is your love for Him enough to keep you looking to Him in the trials of life? If you decided to follow Jesus simply to avoid Hell, you may need to double check your commitment. Do you really love Him or do you love that free pass out of hell? Do you love Him or are you simply enamored with the thoughts of living forever? If all else passed away, would you still love Jesus simply because of how He loves you? Is Jesus enough?

The Power of God

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What if we were to suddenly cease trying to do everything in our own strength? It is common in the Western world to strive to become all we can be, to set goals and have wild aspirations. We are taught from an early age that we deserve to have the best that life has to offer, and these things can be ours if we will only work harder than everyone else. We are bombarded by advertising that encourages us to reach for the gold and shoot for the stars, and so we set out to get our fair share of all that is good in the world. Even those of us who profess to be Christians can get caught up in this whirlwind of seeking self-satisfaction. We may couch it in spiritual terminology and demonstrate it by our countless works of charity, but still we are doing these things with little use of God’s power. Humans are a remarkable creation; we have been given the mental prowess and physical capabilities to achieve great things. How often do we stop to contemplate how small our power is when compared to the Holy God of the universe? What might we accomplish for Him if we would but abandon everything and trust solely in His power?

Too often we muddy our life message by determining to follow Jesus and then attempting to do so by our own plans and means. Sure, we’ll pray for wisdom here and a blessing there, but too often these are cursory prayers that lack focus and true devotion. The way we operate should be the exact opposite. While it is somewhat antithetical to our culture, it is critical that we spend great amounts of time alone with God, crying out to Him in desperation. We must let Him know that we realize we are nothing without Him. In our own strength we can accomplish very little. We may be a great planner and an overachiever, but there is nothing we can do on our own that comes remotely close to the smallest thing we can do through His power. A life lived in reckless abandonment to Jesus Christ is a life that will shake the world with the love of Jesus.

What exactly does it mean to live a life with reckless abandon for Jesus? It means coming to the point where we recognize that our best efforts lack vitality and pale in comparison to His majestic power. It means ceasing every attempt to accomplish something on our own. Instead of working diligently and praying for His blessing, we must pray diligently and be blessed by His working. Don’t confuse what I’m saying as being an excuse to be lazy and to do no work. Following Jesus is indeed difficult work, but it’s the kind of work that leaves one feeling well satisfied at the end of the day. We simply need to become a people who pray first and act second. We often get this reversed. Instead of trying to figure out how to overcome insurmountable odds, we need to simply move forward in prayer, trusting that God in His power will remove the obstacles from our path. As long as we are following in the footsteps of Jesus, living as He lived and serving others for the sake of the Kingdom, our path will be straight before us. Nothing can stand in the wake of God.

His power is available for our consumption right now. He is waiting to live through you. A true follower of Christ not only has Jesus walking with them, but they have the Spirit of God working through them. We have spent too much of our lives relegating Jesus to the passenger seat, or worse yet, the back seat. It is high time we handed Him both the wheel and the keys. Nothing we will ever do on our own can match what He will do through us. Begin today to seek time alone with Him every day, the longer the better. Cry out in desperation to Him, confess your knowledge of how weak and powerless you are. Ask Him to pour His Spirit into your life until you overflow with His glory and love. Walk in His power and leave all the details to Him. A life fully surrendered to Jesus is a life that will change this world.

Our Response to Poverty

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Poverty can be of a material, physical, mental or spiritual nature. As followers of Jesus, what should be our response to poverty in all of its various forms? It is clear in Scripture that we are to care for those in need. A quick reading of the parable of “The Sheep and the Goats” (Matthew 25:31-46) reveals that we are to feed the hungry, provide water to those who don’t have access to it, give shelter to the homeless, clothe those who are in need, care for the sick and minister to those in prison. It’s a rather comprehensive picture of the poor and outcast in our society. These are the things we must do if we would be a true follower of Christ. This is the mission He left for us to pursue. Not only that, but it is the mission He modeled in His own life. Do you want to live a life that reflects the beauty of Jesus? If so, our mission to those in poverty has been clearly laid out for us.

To carry out our mission will require sacrifice on our behalf for those we find in need. Ministering to those in prison will require giving up some of our time and perhaps will force some of us to drop a sense of fear towards those who are incarcerated. Despite the reasons they are there, those in prison are some of the most vulnerable and desperate people on the planet. They need to hear of the hope offered by Jesus and to feel the nonjudgmental touch of unconditional love.

Caring for the sick requires us to not only sacrifice our time but also to possibly forfeit our own health. Mother Theresa endured many illnesses contracted while carrying for the sick in Calcutta. She was not deterred, and neither can we become so. To touch one who is sick, to visit them in their illness will do wonders for their psyche and resolve. Simply demonstrating the love of Jesus to them will often speed their recovery by that simple act alone. Love is a wonderful healer, and letting a sick person know that someone cares may be just the boost they need.

Giving food and water, clothing or shelter to those who lack these things can be as simple as sharing from your excess. Most of us who live in the West have more than enough food in our cupboards and access to a virtually unlimited supply of clean water. By simply being a people content with “just enough” for ourselves (Proverbs 30:8-9), we would discover a tremendous abundance that we could give to someone who did not have enough. We could also give our money to organizations that are involved in getting food to famine stricken nations or drilling wells in places that have no access to clean water (two excellent ministries I highly recommend that are doing work in this area are Persecution Project and Living Water International). Perhaps you may even consider sacrificing further and actually going to the poor of the world, whether that means a third world country far away, or an inner city just around the corner. Giving your life in service to those in need is giving your life to live out the Gospel. This is a life, if done with the proper attitude and spirit, which certainly looks like Jesus.

We are called to serve those in poverty. Throughout much of the New Testament we find passages that admonish us to care for those who are in need and to share what we have with one another, so that no one lacks anything. Jesus gave all that He had, ultimately His own life, in order to give a better life to all those around Him. He did this out of love and obedience to God. He sacrificed freely and completely. Our response must be the same, so that we too can live lives that are a fragrant sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2). Poverty surrounds every one of us. To those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, the challenge is clear. How will we respond?