Even If i Walk Alone

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

Daily Life

A Heart of Love

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I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place My Spirit within you and cause you to follow My statutes and carefully observe My ordinances. – Ezekiel 6:26, 27 (HCSB)

If we are truly followers of Christ, there will be evidence of a change in the way we live. God tells us that He will give us hearts that love. No longer will we be able to coldly look at the poor and homeless around us; we will have a heart that breaks for the injustice around us. We have a new heart, one full of compassion and mercy.

In the same way, God has given a new Spirit to guide us. Above all we will desire to follow all that Christ has told us to do. Again, what He has told us to do is to feed the hungry, care for those in need and free those who are oppressed in any way. Our implementation of these desires is often lacking but the point is that, above all, these are our desires.

God instills this new heart in all of His people. Having this new heart does not instantly transform us into perfectly loving people; as God has made us creatures of free will, it is still up to us to utilize the gift He has given us. For those of us who find it difficult at times to show love to others, we should be greatly encouraged to realize that love is our new nature. God has embedded His love into our core. If we truly love Him, if we truly seek to serve and live for Him, we will relentlessly strive to unleash that love onto the world around us.

Love From Within

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As He was speaking, a Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and reclined at the table. When the Pharisee saw this, he was amazed that He did not first perform the ritual washing before dinner. But the Lord said to him: “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil. Fools! Didn’t He who made the outside make the inside too? But give to charity what is within, and then everything is clean for you. – Luke 11:37-41 (HCSB)

How often are we as Christians guilty of being so focused on our outward appearance that we totally neglect our inward spiritual health? As long as people see us doing and saying the right things, as long as we look spiritual to those around us, we are content with our dedication to Christ. But this isn’t dedication at all; rather it is pharisaical. God has no more tolerance for such hypocrisy now than Jesus did when He walked among us.

It is time we rid ourselves of the kind of Christianity that is focused on ritual and tradition, the kind of Christianity that is focused on a list of do’s and don’ts. What matters to God is our inward cleanliness and our inward attitude. If we are seeking to love others and to serve them in that love, then we will achieve the outward appearance of holiness that we are so desperately trying to project by our current piety. Jesus never called us to strive to be worthy of Him; rather, He called us to love everyone we encounter, to serve them and show them mercy.

When we learn to love as Christ loved, from the inside out, our outside will shine just as brightly as our love from within. People will notice. They won’t be able to help but notice. This is the kind of worship our Lord demands and demonstrated in His own life. Let’s reject all forms of outward devotion and learn to let our devotion be self evident by the love of Christ we extend to others.

Enhancing Our Light

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“No one lights a lamp and puts it in the cellar or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see its light. Your eye is the lamp of the body. When your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light. But when it is bad, your body is also full of darkness. Take care then, that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, the whole body will be full of light, as when a lamp shines its light on you.” – Luke 11:33-36 (HCSB)

Why does Christ focus on the eye in this passage? It has always read a bit strange to me. If our eye is the lamp, how do we control the amount of light we give off? For most of us, our eyes are on the front lines of everything we experience. As we weave in and out of our daily lives, it is the eye that receives much of our input and triggers reactions in the brain. Those triggers store images and feelings and launch reactions. The things we see will affect everything we are. If we allow our eyes to constantly look upon sinful things, our light will dim; as we look only on things that darken our light, we ourselves will be darkened. If we rather train our eyes to only look on good and holy things, the light of those things will enhance our own light. The things we take in directly affect our ability to reflect God (the light) to others. Therefore, the things we allow ourselves to be exposed to become of the utmost importance. If we are constantly exposed to light, then the inevitable exposure to anything dark will immediately be drowned out by the light, and the same light will reveal a path around the darkness. Since exposure to sin is virtually guaranteed in our dark world, we must be very careful and certain to only look upon light things whenever we have a choice. This will protect us when we must navigate the darkness.

Is He Truly Lord?

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“The LORD your God is commanding you this day to follow these statutes and ordinances. You must be careful to follow them with all your heart and all your soul. Today you have affirmed that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in His ways, keep His statutes, commands, and ordinances, and obey Him. And today the LORD has affirmed that you are His special people as He promised you, that you are to keep all His commands, that He will put you far above all the nations He has made in praise, fame, and glory, and that you will be a holy people to the LORD your God as He promised.” – Deuteronomy 26:16-19 (HCSB)

At times in my life, it has been easy to dismiss scriptures like the one above as being applicable only to the Jews. After all, the book of Deuteronomy was written specifically to the Israelites, long before Christianity came onto the scene. If we view Old Testament scripture this way, we do a great disservice to our ability to live in the manner God intends for us. When Christ died on the cross, He ushered in an explosion in the population of His chosen people: it now included all those who would bow to Him and call Him Lord. With that in mind, let’s examine how this Old Testament scripture can be applied to our lives today.

If we would call Jesus Lord, then we must follow His rules. If we do not, He is not truly our Lord. Calling someone Lord involves an attitude of subservience and devotion. Are we devoted? Do we love Him as we say? Then we will obey Him. Jesus will not force us to obey; He will love us regardless of our response to His directives. He is the Servant King, and those who love Him must become servant subjects.

Notice the wording chosen when He instructs us to follow His instructions: He says we must “be careful to follow them”. Why would we need to “be careful”? I believe there are two reasons. First, when we do something carefully, we are fully engaged, we concentrate to accomplish the task at hand with great precision. Doing something carefully implies we are giving great thought to the task, not haphazardly rushing through what we have to do. Second, I believe we are told to “be careful” because we will be opposed at every turn as we attempt to be faithful. The enemy is lurking around our every move, looking to persuade us to deviate just a little from our destination. We must be diligent to ignore the temptations that would cause us to move off course.

Accepting Christ as our Lord is a marvelous two way street. When we accept Him, He promises to establish us as one of His chosen people. There are no preconditions, there is no entrance exam; our acceptance is automatic. When we believe and surrender to Him as Lord, we are transformed and integrated into the mass of His chosen people. He promises us that if we will simply obey His commands, He will make us a Holy people. He will raise us up above all nations. We are no longer citizens of any earthly kingdom or nation, but rather we belong only to Him, and He to us. From this point forward we must dismiss our sinful need to identify with anything that has been created, and find our identity only in the One who is the Creator. Our attitudes have to change, our lifestyles have to change. We are a Holy people, and if we would call Jesus Lord, we must then act like Holy people.

Study His Word and learn His commands. We must learn to everyday draw closer to God. We do this by carefully following all He will teach us. Just as we don’t take a day off from being a citizen of our country, there are no days off from being a citizen of God’s kingdom. Our surrender to Him provides us a permanent residence among His people, so long as we should want it. Relax in the loving arms of the King; rejoice in the fellowship of His people, who are now your people. Be careful to never shame His name and to always walk in His ways. If we would call Him Lord, we must faithfully live out our proclamation. In return, He will rain love and strength upon us.

Finding Calm in the Storm

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“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. And its collapse was great!” – Matthew 7:24-27 (HCSB)

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