Even If i Walk Alone

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

Daily Life

Who Am I?

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There are times, and these are the moments when I am thinking correctly, that I feel infinitely small in this universe. Simply looking around at everything God has created leaves me in awe and in utter awareness of my insignificance within it all. The God we worship is the very one who created the endless arrays of sights, smells and colors that wonderfully permeate our senses every day. This same God posses the immensely vivid imagination responsible for the host of characters that roam the earth; some of his creatures are downright hilarious and I am left with no other conclusion than God has an incredible sense of humor. The ability of the earth to furnish enough food to sustain its every inhabitant, to dispense a seemingly endless supply of water and to provide the abundant oxygen necessary for our very breath is astounding. This was all brought to bear by our Creator God. Man’s intellect and ingenuity would never be able to accomplish these things. Only God has created life from nothing, and only God sustains that life by His power and grace.

Jesus both spoke of and demonstrated His power over creation. He told the winds to be calm, and they immediately fell silent. Others can debate the means by which he did so, but one way or the other He overcame the properties of water which allowed Him to walk atop it. He told us that with only a small amount of faith we could literally move mountains. All of creation is under His control, and all of it defers to Him without question. Jesus gives a command and His creation follows.

There is one exception to this rule, however: humans. Only humans have had the audacity to question God, to refuse to cooperate, to blatantly ignore and reject His commands. Of all creation, only we see ourselves as somewhat superior to God; we elect to do things the way we see fit, rather than in the way He has told us. Who are we to suppose ourselves greater than the One who created us? What right do we have to rebel against the One who not only gives us this life, but holds the keys to our eternal life? How arrogant and thick-headed can we possibly be?

God forgive our lack of reverence and misplaced sense of relevance. We have become a people consumed with ourselves and the comforts we can acquire. We have turned away from the One who loves us and have lost the heart to care for the orphans and widows. We have lost the stomach to fight for justice in our world. How long will we continue to spit in the face of God and carry on our life as if He doesn’t even exist? How is it that we who profess to be followers of Jesus live lives that look no different from those who reject Him? What right do we have to turn our backs on the One who created us, died for us and loves us? Who do we think we are?

Regardless of our answer to that question, we are nothing save the righteousness of Jesus. We are formed from dirt and we are lower than the lowest things on earth. We are wicked and we are evil; we have chosen to turn from the path of life and pursue the road that leads to death. Without the cleansing blood of Jesus, we are wasted, filthy and undone. Who you say you are has everything to do with who you say that Jesus is. If He is not Lord in my life, if I am not fully devoted to Him, then what I am is hopeless. Thankfully there is a better way; there is another answer. I have hope because I have Jesus. I seek Him and I strive to follow in His way. Without Him, I have nothing; with Him, I have everything. Who am I? I am the loved creation of a gracious, patient and forgiving God. I am a follower of His Son, and I am forgiven and free.

How will you answer the question? Ask yourself, “Who am I?” Are you the creation that scoffs and rejects the one who made you, or are you the person that faithfully obeys the commands of your Creator? The choice is ours; again, ask yourself, “Who am I?”

Paling By Comparison

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We crowd our lives with so many good things that it becomes easy to miss that all the good things in the world are worth nothing in comparison to Jesus. In our efforts to live a Godly life, we become consumed with the busyness of our culture while wrapping it in a pleasant “Christian” covering. We head up committees at church, volunteer whenever possible, pray and read the Bible. If we are financially able, we send our children to private Christian schools, thereby securing a future for them where they too can be obsessed with the busyness of acting out their religion. In the Western culture, we have so many resources available to us and so many opportunities to serve that the noise of our efforts often drowns out the very mission for which we purport to be engaging. I encourage you to look again at the life of Christ; He was not a man dominated by busyness. He walked from place to place, often took time to get alone to simply pray and think, and always had time for those in need. Though it may have been short, His was not a rushed life. By all appearances, it does not seem that Jesus tried to fill every available moment of His time in the name of religion. Instead He chose the better way of simply obeying His Father and carrying out His mission on earth.

Satan is a master of taking good things and twisting them into something that actually pushes us away from God. Volunteering our time for worthwhile activities should always be a good thing, yet if we are neglecting time alone with God or if our volunteer time is not done with the focus on the love of Jesus, then we have allowed Satan to twist our generosity into something that pleases him. Whenever we are not actively involved in true Kingdom service, Satan is pleased; he is happy to let us coast along in this direction because we are doing him no harm. The longer we drift in this manner, the more difficult it is to see the problem with it, and the harder it becomes to turn around. This is why it is so important to constantly monitor our walk. Are we doing something that looks like Jesus in this moment? Now how about this moment? Every second of every day we are constantly making choices to either follow Him or to turn another way. As long as we are focused on the things Jesus did rather than on what we think we should be doing, we will be fine. The moments we glance to the side are the moments for which Satan waits. He is constantly trying to catch our eye with the shiny objects of this world (a new car, a bigger church building, a new ministry, etc.). All things can be used for the glory of God or for the glory of ourselves. We must be diligent when considering our choices.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this world that can even remotely compare to the love of Jesus Christ. Why do we so often accept the petty treasures of this life in lieu of the eternal and matchless abundance of God? How long will we continue in this self deception and delusion? Jesus gave His life for us, even though we are an evil and unrepentant people. He loved us with such grace that He continues to see us as what He created us to be rather than what we have allowed ourselves to become. All He asks in return is our devotion to Him. We owe Him that and more. He alone can save us from ourselves and from the very forces of evil. God is our treasure, Heaven is our reward, and Christ is our salvation. We must once and for all cast aside everything to which we hold dear and instead cling only to the matchless glory of Jesus Christ. Everything else pales in comparison to the beauty and the love of the Holy Son of God. Don’t settle for the shiny trinkets of this world. Instead, let us devote ourselves to reach for the hands of the eternal King, the lover and healer of our souls.

The Little Things

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Following Jesus is a massive undertaking. It’s hard to imagine anything more monumental than dedicating one’s life to following any one person, much less the Creator of the Universe! When we decide to forsake everything to follow Jesus, it is not a trivial matter. This decision is not a momentary whim for true followers. This is an agonizing realization that we are nothing without Him and we can no longer live for ourselves, but rather must expend all our days to glorify Him. In this magnitude of a decision, it is easy to get lost and feel overwhelmed. We can see what the finish line looks like, but we often are clueless as to how to get from where we are to there. The old axiom of “How do you eat an elephant (the answer is – with apologies to my fellow animal lovers – one bite at a time)?” comes into play here. If we try and do everything Jesus commanded us to do in one fell swoop, we are destined to fail. In fact, I think many of our failures arise from our trying to do too much at once and perhaps too much too soon. God’s Sovereign story has been unfolding for thousands of years. There is an element of divine patience woven throughout history. The key movements are in the subtleties of life. Jesus is constructing His Kingdom from the bottom up rather than from the top down. He is building His dominion through the freewill of those who love Him rather than by dictating to those who do not. God is in the little things, the details, of life.

Rather than trying to make great strides in our walk with God each day, we should instead strive for small, consistent steps. As Dave Ramsey is fond of saying, “When I read the story of the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise wins every time!” There is great wisdom in that old story. While it is very important to not only see the big picture but to also keep it clearly in focus each day, it is equally important to concentrate on the small snapshots that make up that bigger picture. Every day we are faced with situations in our life that force us to make choices. Many times these choices will cause us to choose for Christ or against Him. We must choose between lying and telling the truth. We must choose between acting justly or unjustly. We must choose between compassion and selfishness. Each of these decisions and countless more are the details of life. They are the minutiae that form our character and determine the integrity of our devotion to Jesus. While none of these choices on their own appear to be of much consequence at the time, the truth is that it is the accumulation of these choices that ultimately determines whether or not we will live a life of following Jesus.

Never underestimate the weight of little choices. These choices are creating who we will become tomorrow. It is vitally important that we take captive every thought, every choice and every emotion as we determine to follow Christ. Nothing must slip through the cracks. While this is of course nearly impossible in application, it is through disciplining ourselves to monitor the moments that we will develop into the image of Christ. It is by focusing on Him every second of our lives and in every opportunity. Following Jesus is not a onetime decision, but rather a life long journey of countless steps. Each step either brings us closer to Him or it moves us further away. Take care of the little things in life, the details of every day. By choosing Christ in the small, unseen moments, we will mature into a true and devoted follower of Jesus. The big things in life will take care of themselves if we are slowly and steadily building a life that looks like Jesus in the small decisions of our everyday lives.

Awareness

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At some point, I hope someone will be able to explain to me the wisdom of going to the dentist on consecutive days to have work done on each side of my mouth. I figured I was being efficient in getting all the necessary work done quickly so that I could check it off my list. What I have discovered is that the only thing worse than one side of your mouth aching, is both sides of your mouth aching. Nothing really gnaws at you like a toothache; it’s not fun and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. In the midst of this I opened my email to read of yet another attack on Christians in a foreign country. One of my daily prayer guides today contained a story of a young boy whose arm had been hacked by a machete when Muslim extremists attacked Christians during a church service. I then happened across a ministry that is doing great work in the area of human trafficking. Suddenly I felt very foolish for the petty thoughts of my toothache.

Everyday there are new stories coming out about the suffering of our fellow human beings. Some are our brothers and sisters in Christ; others are waiting to be told about Jesus. All are in desperate need of His love and encouragement. We are the vehicles of delivery for that love. We cannot share love with those in need if we are unaware of their situations. It is very important that we make an effort to read the stories of those who are suffering. It is very important to walk down our streets with open eyes so that we do not miss the obvious needs around us. And it is very important that we ask God for discerning hearts to seek out those He would have us to help. In short, we must be aware of the needs that surround us both in our own cities and around the world.

Many choose to not seek out the hurting because they know it will require some form of sacrifice from them, whether that be in terms of time, emotion or money. We are a people whose lives of luxury have led to a growing aversion to sacrifice. For true followers of Jesus, the term sacrifice is somewhat of a misnomer. Whenever we “sacrifice”, we gain Christ. We give up something in this world, and we receive more of the next world into our lives. We forfeit what is imperfect and gain what is perfect. Where then is our sacrifice? To lose all is to gain Christ. This is not sacrifice; this is reason to celebrate. When we let go of selfishness, greed and pride, we receive back selflessness, generosity and humility. In other words, when we let go of what this world tells us we need, we receive the character of Christ in return.

Our sufferings pale in comparison to what is experienced elsewhere in this world. Every day unspeakable acts of torture are manifested upon believers of Jesus. These are our brothers and sisters that accept this for the love of Jesus. They endure these atrocities while we sit comfortably on our couches in our air conditioned homes. Most of us will never have any idea what it means to truly suffer. We cannot ignore those in chains, those who are being tortured, sold into slavery and killed. This is not someone else’s problem to confront. This is a battle for the saints of Jesus Christ. We all have a responsibility to become aware of what is happening to Christians around the world, and to innocent people of all faiths and nations. Seek out stories each day and pray for those in need. Feed the poor, care for the orphans and widows, and seek justice for those who are persecuted. Think not of what this will cost you, but rather what you will gain. The person you will become as you live out these God-given commands will be worth far more than anything you might lose. Don’t turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what is happening in the world today. Become aware of the needs of our world and work to bring to fruition the Kingdom of justice and love.

Forgiveness

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I don’t know about you, but I tend to severely beat myself up when I fall short of the standard of Jesus. While I intellectually realize I can never achieve the level of devotion to God that He did, emotionally I am somewhat distraught when my actions do not match the desires of my heart. I can truly say with Paul that the very things I hate I end up doing, while the things I want to do I leave undone. Sometimes my relationship with Jesus looks more like a train wreck than anything else. I passionately love Him and am in awe of His holiness and love for me. I study and structure my life in ways that I believe put me in a place where I can best follow Him. Still, I fail and I fall like everyone else. I literally amaze myself that despite all my planning and preparation, I can still be led astray and not walk in His light. These are the days that end in prayers of desperation and pleading for Him to not let me wander from the path I know He would have me to walk. I believe we all have our “thorns of the flesh”, triggers that knock us off course. I think at this point I’d just like some new triggers to replace the old ones instead of always being tripped up by the same character flaws!

Thankfully, Jesus is patient beyond all our understanding. The One who told us to continually forgive those who sin against us, no matter how often they do so, forgives us in the same way. He sees our hearts and our devotion to Him. He loves us through our triumphs and our failures. The despondency I feel when I miss the mark is a great ploy of Satan. He wants nothing more than to convince us that we will never measure up so we may as well just stop trying. He attempts to sideline us by pointing to our failures and telling us that Christ can’t see past our sin to get to our hearts. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we must reject these lies in order to push past our failures and accept the forgiveness of Christ. We need to confess our sin and then let it go. We need to learn from our mistakes, but we need not dwell on them any longer than it takes to recognize them and repent. I have often found myself repeatedly confessing the same sin because I am so overwhelmed by my failure. Years ago I read an article in Keith Green’s Last Days magazine entitled “Dirty Linen in the Throne Room”. The gist was that Christ cleanses us, so that when we appear before Him we are washed clean. However, we refuse to recognize what He has done for us and instead see ourselves approaching Him in filthy rags. We have an identity crisis; we are listening to Satan’s lies about who we are rather than living in the reality of who we are in Christ.

I have often taken comfort over the years in the following lyrics from Margaret Becker’s amazing song, “Just Come In”:

You think you’ve crossed
Some sacred line
And now I will ignore you
If you look up
You will find
My heart is still toward you
Look at the sky
The east to the west
That’s where I threw this
When you first confessed
Let it go now

We need not beat ourselves up when we fail. Falling is a part of learning to walk. God loves us, skinned knees and all. We must never stop seeking Him and we must never cease our desire to live a life that looks like His. I will never understand why He loves us so much, despite our failures and our brokenness; but I will spend the rest of my days doing what I can to prove myself worthy of that love. I will get up again and again; I will not stay knocked down. My heart is toward Him and I will continue striving to live a life that is pleasing to Him and in a way that reflects His glory to everyone I meet. We are forgiven; we are empowered and we are clean. Walk in your true identity and reject the lies of Satan. We are cleansed and we are free. Live in His beauty.