Even If i Walk Alone

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

Daily Life

The Dangers of Autopilot

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Too often when I drive to work, I end up pulling into a parking spot without remembering anything about the drive there. I know I took on-ramps and off-ramps, negotiated intersections and stoplights, yet I have no recollection of any of it. I was thinking of this phenomenon when I was in the shower this morning, because as I reached back to turn off the water, I realized I had no recollection of shampooing, conditioning or washing. Since I was certain that I had not simply stood there for the last 20 minutes getting wet, I wasn’t too concerned about being clean. The simple fact is that we often engage an autopilot of sorts for tasks we repeat regularly. Our muscle memory allows us to perform the necessary steps in the proper order to achieve the desired results. This might be okay for showering and driving (okay, maybe it’s just a tad bit dangerous for driving), but it can be detrimental to our spiritual life.

How many times have you read a passage of Scripture, and upon completion find you have no idea what you just read? This is especially easy to do with Bible stories that many of us have grown up hearing our entire lives. We know how they begin and how they end, so any mystery is pretty much nonexistent. Contrast this with those moments when you read Scripture and a new revelation all but leaps off the page at you. A passage you’ve read dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times, suddenly takes on a whole new meaning and lights you up inside. What is the difference? It’s really all in our approach and our attitude. When we pray and ask God to reveal His word to us, when we pick up the Bible with every intention of learning something new, we more often than not will find it. However, if we are simply reading out of a sense of duty or propriety, our autopilot engages and we read without comprehension. It takes focus to seek out and learn new things. Focus is hard, of course, so we often opt for the much easier autopilot course. Following Jesus is rarely easy and it is always a conscious choice. If we are serious about following Him, learning from Him, then we must be willing to put sincere effort into studying His Word with focus and intensity.

Another area where we get in trouble using autopilot is in our family relationships. Sometimes it is so much easier to live a life that looks like Jesus when we are among strangers or friends than it is when we are in our own homes. It is easy to lose focus when surrounded by those who are closest to us because we know they will love and forgive us no matter what. Suddenly our efforts to control our tongue or to maintain an attitude of service are forgotten and we revert to a life that looks like anything but Christ. Our autopilot kicks in and we mindlessly while away what should be the most important hours of our day. Jesus never let up on His concentration; He never ceased living out His mission. If we would live like Jesus, we must engage in the model He demonstrated for us. At home it will take even more work to remain focused and on mission, but the effort is more than worth it since these are the ones with whom we have chosen to spend our lives. Imagine the peace in your household if you were to model Jesus in all of your interactions. Autopilot has no place in our relationships.

Be careful not to live your life on autopilot. Jesus deserves our devotion and our full attention. I don’t want to be like the disciples who fell asleep while keeping watch with Jesus. I want to live my life fully awake and completely aware of His presence. If Jesus thought my life was worth dying for, then surely His life is worth our attention. We must not give lip service to following Christ. A true follower will stay focused and on mission with a passionate intensity. He is the lover of our souls and the Lord of our lives. Let’s take care to stay off of autopilot and to live intentionally for Him.

Start a New Dream

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All of us have faced great discouragement in our lives. Some may currently be in the depths of despair, losing hope, and seeing few options available to change their situation. Humility was an attribute modeled by Jesus, and it is in the toughest of times that we have the opportunity to grow and express our own humility. As difficult as our circumstances might appear, suffering builds character; if we let them, our trials can be a springboard to great new opportunities and a whole new season in life.

Nothing is forever except the love of God. We allow Satan to so thoroughly defeat us that we begin to believe the lie that where we are is all there is; we buy into the deception that happiness and fulfillment is for other people not for us. I can almost hear the cackle of demonic forces when I look at people who are so down that they no longer have any concept of up. Each one of us was created in the very image of God. This means we were created to be beautiful, loving, successful, confident and extraordinarily capable people. The entrance of sin into our world has damaged our outlook, but it has far from destroyed our destiny.

All of us, regardless of circumstance, handicap or station has the unique ability to start a new dream right here and right now. One of the great facts of life is that as long as we have a breath remaining, we get the privilege of a “do-over”. Regardless of what has happened, what you’ve done or where you’ve been, you can begin again today. By sending Jesus to die on the cross for our mistakes, for our sins, it became an established fact that God is the God of second chances. By the blood of Jesus and by His mercy and grace, we have the option to have our entire past washed away and swept clean; what were once regrets can now become opportunities for growth. Instead of dwelling on past failures, make right what you can and forgive yourself for those things which you can not correct; then move on. You cannot live a life following Jesus while at the same time being a defeated individual. The power of Christ simply won’t allow it. The closer you draw to Him, the more you will be bathed in His power and made whole.

Allowing God to pull you out of your pit of hopelessness is never easy. Entrenched habits and opinions will claw mercilessly at you, attempting to hold you down. It will take an extraordinary amount of work on your part. Change is hard, but the alternative is worse. Change requires discipline, and we humans tend to rail against anything that restricts our selfish desire to do what we want to do. When you begin to develop the mental muscle required for discipline, constantly ask yourself, “Am I the person I want to be? Am I happy with the life I have? Am I the beautiful, creative, confident person I was created to be?” If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’, then it is time to change. Determine one thing you can do today to move yourself toward being who God created you to be; take one action that will put you one step closer to Jesus. When tempted to stray from your new course, simply ask yourself, “Which decision brings me closer to the person I was created to be; which choice brings me closer to Jesus?” After mastering one discipline, choose one more thing that will improve your life. Much like a snowball rolling downhill, discipline gains momentum and strength the longer it is allowed to develop. Start small, but do start.

John Lawry once wrote a lyric that has stuck with me for the last 20 years and has had a profound impact on my life: “We are what we are, because of what we allow; are we becoming what we want to be?” The choice is ours. The blood of Jesus, His sacrifice for us, provides the opportunity to begin again and to start fresh. That opportunity is available to each one of us and at any time. It will not be easy and it will require plenty of sweat equity on our behalf. Are you willing to work for it? Are you willing to change? Will you be content with who you are or will you choose to become the one God created you to be? If you are discouraged, defeated, or broken in any way, determine that today is the last day you will feel like this. Take a step towards Jesus; reach for His hand. He waits patiently to lead you to a life beyond compare, a life spent following Him. Close your eyes and take a deep breath; now open your eyes and begin to live again.

Holy Dissatisfied

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The call of Jesus is simple. Love God with all that you are and love everyone else in the same manner. Feed the hungry, care for the sick, the widows and the orphans. Live a life of service; reflect God’s love to everyone you meet. This was and is the mission of Jesus Christ.

If you failed to recognize modern Christianity in the paragraph above, you are not alone. Christians have become known as an intolerant bunch of self-righteous homophobiacs who build big comfortable buildings with high walls in an apparent attempt to keep others out. Our building project budgets dwarf our missions giving and our internal activities far outpace our outreach ministries. How did this happen, and more importantly, how do we fix it?

The answer begins with you and me. We must repent; we must change. If Christ has been removed from the church, then it is our responsibility to seek Him outside of those comfortable walls, to find Him in the eyes of the people He came to save. We must go to the alleys, to the suburbs and to the ghettos. We will find Him in the poor, the sick and the abandoned. Jesus is near, but we have become blind.

It is time that we who claim to know Jesus begin to live a life that looks like His. We must walk where He walked and touch those whom He touched. The time has come to shed our Western trappings and live a life marked by simplicity and grace. Our closets are packed with clothing we never wear while half the globe walks around in rags and without shoes. Our cupboards and refrigerators burst with food in quantities unfathomable to the three billion people in the world who somehow exist on only $2 per day. Jesus said to give all that we have, but we quarrel about the proper amount to tithe, and whether that amount is before or after taxes. Although we are the most blessed generation of people in history, are charity pales in comparison to our earnings.

While some will give of their money, they will withhold their time. Other will give their time, but hold on to their vices. Following Jesus is all or nothing. You can’t do it half-way; you’ll simply get left behind. Following Jesus requires an intense faith a passion to do the works we were both created and commanded to do. Now is the time for this generation to rise up and rebel against the religious traditions we have been taught. Almost everything you’ve learned is wrong because it suffers from years of man-made additions to what is at its heart a very simple mission. True followers of Jesus will reject the pharisaical teachings of the past and return to a life spent in relentless pursuit of the Savior.

Let us begin that journey; let us learn to strip away all that is not of Jesus and begin again to walk in His footsteps. Along the way we will learn what it means to truly identify with the poor and the sick. We will discover renewed passion for life and a compassion for others that is unquenchable. When it comes to Jesus, it is essential that we yearn for more and more; we must never be satisfied. Our longing for Him must leave us aching for more and more. He is our Creator, the One who is madly and passionately in love with us. He longs to be known by you. Will you seek Him? Come with me and let’s learn to pursue Him at any cost. Let us learn together what it means to be a true follower of Jesus.

Christianity is Losing Market Share

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A new book just hitting the shelves compares the eight major religions of the world, and attempts to explain why their differences matter. I haven’t yet read the book, so I have no further comment on the book at this time. However, in an interview given by the author, he made the claim that “Christianity is losing market share”. I’m not criticizing his answer or even his choice of words, but it is odd to think of Christianity in the business terms of “market share”. Regardless, the point is clear. Our world is growing rapidly, and the people in it are finding other religions more attractive to them than Christianity. My only question is, “Why”?

There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ is the truth, and the only way to God is through Jesus. Why then, would so many seek to find an alternate path that Christ has already stated simply does not exist? I believe part of the problem is that Jesus never intended to start a religion, much less one that would become one of the “eight great religions” of the world. He came to abolish religion, to put an end to our striving, our rituals and our piety. He came to replace ritual with obedience and judgmentalism with grace. He came to replace condemnation with love.

If Christianity is indeed “losing market share”, perhaps it is because we who call ourselves Christians are perverting the very message Christ came to deliver. We reek of piety and drip with pharisaical tendencies. Instead of extending grace to all as Jesus did, we have become known for choosing a select group of sins at which to wail and gnash our teeth. Adultery and homosexuality are seen as one way tickets out of the “church”, and prominent Christian leaders have proclaimed that the scourge of AIDS is God’s way of dealing with the sexual sins. Where is the love and compassion of Jesus in that message? The message of Jesus has been co-opted into a man-made religion that bears little resemblance to its namesake.

Jesus came to abolish religious rituals and to promote instead a personal relationship between God and man. No longer did one need to do and say all the right things or dress in a certain manner. Jesus accepted everyone, regardless of their background, occupation or lifestyle. There was no interview process for His disciples. Jesus didn’t spend time getting to know these individuals beforehand. He simply told them to follow Him. He told them to follow Him from the very place that they were, not to get cleaned up first, not to go pray about it. All He said was, “Follow Me.”. Over the years we have added onto this command a plethora of dos, don’ts and rituals. We have perverted the simplicity of His message.

Perhaps worst of all we have ceased to love. We are really good at offering entertainment choices and building beautiful facilities in which to gather, but we have become pathetically lackadaisical when it comes to loving others. People all over the world are starving. Over half the world earns less than $2 per day. Clean water is unavailable to huge masses around the globe. Meanwhile we build comfortable café’s and feature large screen projector screens throughout our churches. We are replete with cash but bankrupt in love. We have become diametrically opposed to the message of Jesus. The greatest commandment of all, as stated by Jesus in Mark 12:30-31, is to love God with all of our hearts, and to love everyone else in the same manner. Membership has become more important than service. Love has taken a back seat to religion.

Is Christianity truly losing market share? I don’t know, but there appears to be some proof to that conclusion. To be perfectly blunt, I’m okay with that. What the world needs is fewer Christians and more people willing to be followers of Jesus. In too many circles, Christianity has indeed become just another one of the religions of the world, one that does little to help anyone. The positive changes are coming from those brave and dedicated souls who are simply following Jesus, who have given their lives entirely to Him, and are living out His mission to the world. These are the people with whom I identify. Perhaps it’s okay to let Christianity wither and decline. Instead, let’s be about doing the things that Jesus told us to do and living a life that looks like His. True followers of Jesus are people who show grace and mercy to all, people who don’t judge others for their sin but accept them as they are. True followers of Jesus care for the needs of the sick, the poor and the hungry. Above all, a true follower of Jesus is marked by love, the greatest commandment of all. If we don’t have love, then we have nothing at all. Perhaps that is the very reason for the decline of modern Christianity. Love is the highest call, and Jesus is the only answer. Nothing else matters.

What Does Success Look Like?

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We live in a culture that is dominated by a success mindset. Advertisers attempt to create one vision of success, friends and family another, and some combination of the two usually takes root within our minds. We spend our lives trying to become successful, whatever that may look like. Generally people answer that being successful means having plenty of money, a big house and nice cars. The more esoteric among us might say that success is happiness and a healthy family. What does success look like to you?

Asking for the definition of success in the Western World and then again in the so-called developing world will yield starkly different answers. Whereas more than half of the world lives in abject poverty, those of us fortunate enough to be born in the West generally have never known true hunger. Most have not gone through even a 24 hour period without access to food of some kind or another. I find it very curious that in all the reading I’ve done, I have never once seen someone in the West define success as having food for the day. Pose this question to someone living in a refugee camp in Darfur, and I assure you that food will be part of their answer to what success looks like for them. Survival would be another part of their answer. Each day for people in their circumstances is a true battle just to live. This is reality, not some cliché statement intended to evoke a response. Whether we choose to care or not, millions die every single day from AIDS, malnutrition and ethnic violence. How often do we remember those facts? More often than not, uncomfortable statements such as these impact us when we read them, but they are quickly pushed out of our consciousness and we hasten to move on to more palatable fare.

What should success look like for those who are followers of Christ? I submit that to be successful we must be making a meaningful impact on the world in the name of Jesus. We don’t have to impact masses of people, but we should be impacting someone. Each one of us has the ability to demonstrate the love of God to another person. We have a fairly short list to help us determine if we are heading for success. Are we feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the orphans, the widows, the single mothers and people in need? Are we nursing the sick, clothing the naked and providing water for the thirsty? Are we so madly, passionately in love with God that we love Him with our entire being, and do we love others with that same love?

We have piled on so many unnecessary and worthless things onto what our definition of success should be. In truth, success for a follower of Jesus is so basic and so simple. We need to take a step back and strip away everything we are allowing to define what we believe success to be. We need to return to the simplicity of Jesus and His message. He didn’t deliver a complicated message or require a burdensome amount of action from us. When we are doing the work mentioned above, it often does not even feel like work at all. We are carrying out the mission of Jesus; we are being who we were created to be. There is no more peaceful place to be than resting in the comfort of God’s will.

How do you define success? Do you have the standard Western definition? Perhaps you even hold to the definition that someone in less fortunate parts of the world would subscribe to. Ultimately, you will never find success until you define it the way Jesus did. Until we fall deeply in love with Him and are carrying out His mission, we will never be successful. Success means living your life fully surrendered to Christ and sharing His love and mission with everyone you encounter. This is the only definition that matters; this is what it means to be successful.