Even If i Walk Alone

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

Will You Give Up Your Life?

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A few days ago Al Qaeda terrorists stormed a church in Iraq and held hostage those who were gathered there. An attempt to free them by the police turned deadly and as I write this the number of those killed is fifty-two. Many more were injured and may not survive. I lead with this to remind us all that while this blog deals with the spiritual side of things, there is a very real physical element to our decision to follow Jesus. While spiritual warfare rages around us unseen, the implications of that very battle are manifested in human lives at every moment. It is said here often: following Jesus is difficult and not for the faint of heart; what perhaps isn’t said enough is that following Jesus can be deadly.

We should expect nothing less, for when we decide to follow in the footsteps of Christ we know where they eventually lead. Jesus steadfastly and purposefully walked to His own death on a cross. I hope you have not been deceived into believing that following Jesus would lead to a life of prosperity, health and the comforts of all this world has to offer. Sorry, but that’s not in the program. Jesus said that we must give up everything for His sake and that we must be willing to lay down our lives for Him, just as he did for us. He told us we would have no place to call home here on earth, and that we would face trial and persecution. None of this should come as a surprise or a shock. Yet every day Christians live in oblivious bliss, confident in their confession of faith, while blindly ignoring what it means to follow Jesus.

It is sobering to hear of the slaughter and torture of our Christian brothers and sisters. We become pensive and introspective. But for those of us who are able to do something about the injustice, we must do more that reflect; we must act. If you live in the West, you are blessed beyond all measure. We are richer than any people that have come before us. We have the ways and we have the means to come to the aid of our brothers and sisters in need. We have the technology and the know-how to proclaim the gospel to lands that forbid us to do so. We have been given so much and therefore much is required of us. We have grown comfortable and lazy in our homes and cities. We have lost the stomach to fight for the orphans, the windows and for justice. Now is the time to must rise up and fight for the name of Jesus. We must take a stand and proclaim His love and His message to all peoples, regardless of the cost to our own lives. If we are not willing to forsake everything, to lose our very lives, then how dare we call ourselves followers of Christ?

These are not easy words, but they also are not new. Look again at what Jesus told us to do. We are to go into all the world to teach others about Him. Yet two thousand years after He gave this command, a third of the world still has never heard His name or experienced His love. What excuse do we have for this? We are not doing enough. Christians around the world are giving their lives for the sake of continuing His mission, and we in the West are content to build buildings and insulate ourselves from all that is happening around us. God forgive us.

What are we to do? Pray diligently and confess our apathy. Weep before God, acknowledge our weakness and beg for the courage to run the race He has set before us. We travel a road that leads to physical death but spiritual life. We must not waver; the mission is too important. Too many have not heard, and it is up to us to tell them; if not us, then who? If not now, then when? We who bear the blood of Jesus must not shy away from shedding our own blood for the sake of His kingdom. The responsibility is ours, and it is great. Together we must carry our cross into the world to continue the mission of Christ. We must not grow weary, because we cannot fail.

On Being Extraordinary

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If you are like me, you aren’t content to simply follow Jesus; you want to do it in a big way and live a life that brilliantly reflects the love of God. We want to be extraordinary. Following in the footsteps of Christ is a very difficult task that at times seems nearly impossible. How then could we ever hope to live a life that goes above and beyond that to which He has called us? I was listening to one of my mentors this morning, the late Jim Rohn, and he said that the key to being extraordinary was to do ordinary things extraordinarily well. You’ve probably heard that in some form before, but the wisdom in this advice is quite sound. We don’t need to be superstar performers or super spiritual ascetics to live our lives way beyond measure. We simply need to do the little things we can do with great care and enthusiasm, in ways that exceed the wildest expectations of others.

Sometimes simply going about our day with a smile on our faces will be far beyond what anyone expects. We live in a dour, cynical world and when someone favors us with a smile it is often unexpected and always appreciated. Think back to the last time a stranger gave you the gift of a friendly smile; did it not lift your spirit in an inexplicable manner? This is such a small task, one that anyone can accomplish, yet it can have such a profound impact on not only the one to whom you give the gift, but also on your own disposition. Smiling releases endorphins and serotonin, our built in natural wonder drugs that make us feel happier and more relaxed. A calm, vibrant person becomes more naturally attractive to others and this affords us the opportunity to both reflect and share the love of Jesus with others. Simply by smiling you’ve gone from an average Christian to an evangelist; how extraordinary!

When you offer help to someone in need, don’t be content to stop at the obvious problem at hand. Show genuine love to that person, and offer to spend a few more minutes helping them with something else. How often do you have a thirty second conversation with someone and then move on, content that you have fulfilled your socially polite duties? Have you ever had the experience of saying “Good morning!” to someone and had them respond with a “Fine, thanks”? We have these pre-programmed conversations that we utilize automatically when we come across a casual acquaintance in a hallway or supermarket. What if we took the effort to disengage our auto-pilot and spend two minutes of actual conversation with that person instead of the obligatory thirty seconds? Would that person not realize that you were genuinely interested in them and perhaps eventually begin sharing their heart and struggles with you? Now you have created an opportunity to speak love into their life and help them begin a healing process that might very well lead them to devoting their life to Christ. All this takes is an additional ninety seconds of your time. By sparing ninety seconds each day to engage someone in meaningful conversation, you just might fulfill the command of Christ to make a disciple. Ninety seconds; that’s extraordinary!

Being extraordinary for Jesus is not a task that is beyond us; it is simply a matter of looking at the ordinary things we do every day, and finding ways to do them better than before. These small, incremental changes will compound to have a dramatic effect on the life you live for Christ. As you build momentum by focusing on the previously mundane aspects of your walk, you will find simply following Jesus is not enough; now you must pursue Him with an intense devotion and unbridled passion because a little of Jesus leaves you thirsting for so much more. This is a life that is far from ordinary; seek it and you will find that you can indeed be extraordinary in your service to Christ.

The End of Freewill

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The days of the easy-going Christian are numbered. The laissez-faire attitude exhibited by so many professed Christians leads not to Heaven, but to Hell. We were given the gift of freewill by our Creator with the intent that we would give it back. When we surrender to Christ, we relinquish the rights to our own ideas and individualism so that we might have the mind of Christ and be one with Him. Little children do whatever they want to obtain pleasure in life. Adults make measured, intentional steps to reach their goals. Far too many Christians are content to stay in the infancy of their faith, convinced there will be a lack of consequences. Jesus Christ did not come to this earth to be tortured and crucified so that you could say a magic prayer and then live your life in the same manner you did before you prayed. He came to redeem your soul. Redemption comes through surrender; Christ sacrificed His life for us so that in turn we could follow Him by giving ourselves away to Him. We have the far easier end of the bargain, but we still have a part we must play.

Nowhere in Scripture does it teach about the popularized “sinner’s prayer” that is taught in so many churches around the world. However, the Bible does teach that if we would be followers of Jesus then we must give up every claim to our old life. It teaches that we are to share what we have with those around us so that no one is in need. It teaches that we must lay our lives down for others just as Christ laid His down for us. What Bible have we been reading for the past couple of hundred years? The Bible says that all are called to go throughout the world teaching about Jesus and making disciples, yet few of us ever leave our neighborhoods. We write checks to give to those who apparently have some mystical calling to be missionaries. We are all missionaries; the Bible exempts no one. Jesus told us to “Go” and we simply can’t find the time because we are immersed in the shallow cultural activities of our modern societies and lives.

The church at large is in need of a massive wakeup call or we face a devastating future. Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:17-23; how many of us will come to Him on our final day, thinking we our secure in our salvation and yet be turned away in utter shock and despair when He says that He never knew us? If we do not repent now and change the way we are doing life, we may not have the opportunity to do so later. None of us is guaranteed another breath, yet we live as if we are indestructible. Look at the world around you, and what do you see? Selfish people living selfish lives convinced of their own immortality. Few give any thought to the sick and dying, the poor and hungry, or the persecuted and enslaved. We don’t want to look at those images or acknowledge our responsibility to the world. We’d rather be content to gather in our buildings once a week, break some bread, drink some juice and go home. Our commitment to the mission and calling of Jesus Christ is pathetic and we are in serious danger of being found lacking when it comes to our time of judgment.

We’ve got to wake up, and we’ve got to do it now. If we serve Christ then we must do the things He told us to do. We are covered by His blood so that we might share it with others. We must be His hands and feet to a world of death and decay. If we will not carry out His mission, then who will? It takes more than a prayer to be committed and more than good intentions to affect change in our world. Our lives are no longer our own; they belong to Jesus for the purposes of accomplishing what He determines. We are the ones responsible for bringing justice to our world. We are the bearers of His cross. This is not a charge for the faint of heart; it is a mission for those who would dare to call themselves followers of Jesus, and in so doing, to change their world. Freewill is dead; long live the will of Christ.

Making the Big Decisions

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The biggest decision you will ever make in your life is whether or not to become a follower of Jesus. Beyond this, everything else trivially pales. Still, we will face many difficult choices throughout our lives. How can we be certain we are making the correct decision? Asking whether or not we are making the right choice is the wrong question; we should be most concerned with whether or not we are making a wise choice. The Bible tells us to ask for wisdom, and this is what is genuinely needed most when determining what we should do. We should seek the counsel of others, trusted individuals who have walked the path before us and have experience in the matters we are dealing with. Don’t ask broke people for financial advice or a single person for marital advice. You need to inquire of people who have been where we are and successfully navigated the storms in order to benefit from their experiences. Pray diligently for wisdom and peace concerning your decision. You may not ever hear a definite, unmistakable answer in your heart; but then again you just might! The Holy Spirit works within each believer to prompt us in the way we should go. We simply need to learn to be still and receptive to His leading. Ask others to pray on your behalf as well. Joining together in prayer around a common issue is powerful and one of the great and thrilling mysteries of God.

God created us as agents of free will. He has bestowed on us the honor and privilege of making our own choices. While there are certainly times in life where it would be great to just throw up our hands and have God make the decision for us, we recognize that life would be far less exciting if everything were dictated by someone else. Even though we are free to choose which direction we will go, we must realize that the path that leads to Christ is always the one we should take. Every decision has some spiritual element to it. We need to ask ourselves which choice will lead us closer to God, reflect His glory, or serve someone else in love. Learning to consider our choices in life through this spiritual lens will assist in making decisions far easier. If the choice in question involves money, which outcome will result in you being a better steward of God’s resources? If the decision is about a commitment of time, which choice will allow you to best utilize the number of hours to be spent doing kingdom work? When deciding between two potential job offers, determine which position will allow you to make a bigger impact in the lives of others for Christ. Again, every decision has a spiritual element. It is very important that we take the time to discover the implications of each choice in regards to our commitment to follow Jesus. The wise decision will always be the one that best positions us to serve others with the love of Christ. It may require temporary sacrifice, but it will reap eternal rewards.

We tend to get caught up in how our decisions affect us here and now in this present world. Instead, we should learn to make choices based on their effect in God’s eternal kingdom. This will remove much of the stress and trepidation we feel when faced with monumental decisions. It should never be about how choices will affect our own lives, but rather how they will affect the lives of those we are called to serve. Pray for wisdom and seek the counsel of others. Look at each choice through a spiritual lens; what makes the most sense for promoting the kingdom of God and His glory? Once we take the focus off of ourselves, the big decisions in life seem far smaller and we are able to move forward, confident that we are following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Balancing Your Wants and Needs

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We live in a culture that is obsessed by what we “need” and by things we “deserve”. On top of this, we add the additional items which we simply want to have or achieve. At the end of the day, we are consumed by an avalanche of selfish desires that have no positive effect on the world around us and wind up serving only ourselves. This is not the model of Biblical Christianity. It is instead a far cry from the behavior of the early followers of Jesus that we find recorded in Acts 2:44-47. In that passage we see that Christians divided whatever they had and shared with anyone who was in need. There was no thought of “getting ahead in life” or hoarding resources for themselves. They weren’t concerned with personal wealth-building, but rather with building up someone else. Selfishness was not on their radar because the focal point of their lives was Jesus Christ.

Fast-forward two thousand years or so to our modern society. The things we “need” have taken on an entirely different meaning; where once our needs were food and shelter, they have now become extravagance and overabundance. If we don’t have a couple of week’s worth of food in our house, we “need” to go shopping. If we don’t live in a nice neighborhood, we “need” to move. If our televisions cannot display the latest HD quality picture, we “need” a new TV. I submit that the vast majority of our “needs” are more accurately simply a wish list of our “wants”. What we need is the love and grace of Jesus. That is a true need with the added benefit of being a glorious want and desire. We love Him because He first loved us and gave His life for us, so we want to live our life for Him. It’s beautiful the way God has caused us to want most that which we need most. He has put a deep longing within each of us to come to Him. He is all we need.

Another area we get wrong concerns the things we believe we “deserve”. We tell ourselves that we deserve to be happy, deserve to be secure and deserve nice things because we work hard to get them. This too flies in the face of Biblical teaching. What the Bible tells us we deserve is eternal damnation and separation from God in Hell. That is what we deserve. Anything we get that is more than this is simply because of the grace of God and we should fall on our faces and plead for His mercy. It is common to hear people say that they only want what they deserve; they can have it by simply continuing to live their lives for themselves and rejecting Christ. This is a sure-fire method to guarantee yourself to get what you deserve. Live for yourself and be eternally separated from God. Keep the money you earn to yourself and ignore the poor, and you will be stripped of everything you possess. It’s easy to get what you deserve; simply continue to live your life for yourself and leave God out of the equation. I will personally guarantee you, based on the word of God, that you will indeed receive the full measure of everything you deserve.

We need to rethink our wants, needs and our concept of what we believe we deserve. Our “wants” should be those things that will bring us closer to Jesus. Our “needs” should be just enough to survive in this world. What we deserve is clear, so we must repent, accept the grace of God as our covering, and praise Him from saving us from the life we truly merit. Don’t live your life on the terms dictated to you by our Western culture. Live your life in gratitude and service to Jesus, reflecting His love and grace to everyone you meet.