Even If i Walk Alone

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

Christmas is for Losers

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I may never understand the reason God chose to send His son to earth as a human baby. I struggle to think of Jesus in all His perfection being helpless and having to be taught the basics of life such as walking and talking. Why did it have to be this way, surely there was some other way God could have brought salvation to our world?

While certain aspects of the salvation story may be incredible and imponderable, there is one thing I know for certain: I could not be more grateful. I am thankful that Jesus chose to experience the same things I did growing up, that He chose to identify with me in the most tangible way possible. As Geoff Moore wrote, “He was one of us, somehow like you and me/The God we serve breathed the air that we breathe”. Our Lord gave up everything so He could experience the same things we do. He faced socio-economic, peer and financial pressures. He faced the temptations of sex, greed, pride and selfishness. He knows exactly what we go through, every trial we face. He chose to make this knowledge an intimate rather than anecdotal knowledge. He knows exactly how we feel at all times because He has been there as well.

What must it have been like for Jesus to live among those who were so much the same, yet so much inferior to Him? Yet Jesus never put on the cloak of pride; instead He chose humility and gentleness. He identified with us, and in so doing allowed us to trust and love Him even more. We will never have to face something that He Himself has not faced. He blazed the trail, finished the race and defeated our enemy. Jesus faced it all and in the end won not only every battle, but He won freedom for all who would come to Him. No matter how you look at it, Jesus is the ultimate winner.

Here’s where it gets even more incredible. Jesus, the ultimate winner went through everything He did for the sake of evil, sinful folks like you and me. Just as Jesus is without a doubt the ultimate winner, there is no doubt that you and I are perennial losers. We fail over and over again, we swear allegiance to Christ and then turn around and deny Him. We claim to care for the orphans and widows, and then spend lavishly on Christmas for friends and family without giving a thought to the homeless and weak. If the truth be told, we fall far more often than we walk. We struggle and fail and plead for forgiveness from our perfect Savior. We are, indeed, ultimate losers. This is why God sent His son to redeem us. This is why Jesus came to set a perfect example for us to follow. This is why Jesus chose to empathize with our weakness. He knows who we are and loves us still. He came that our broken lives would find healing in His mercy. His humility covers our pride and His perfection cleanses our failures. So in this season when we celebrate the birth of Christ, we celebrate Jesus choosing to identify with losers like you and losers like me. Yes, Christmas is for losers and I couldn’t be more grateful.

The Little Drummer Boy

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My wife’s favorite Christmas song is “The Little Drummer Boy” (she’s partial to the Bob Seger version). Growing up I, being a drummer, favored this song as well. However, as I grew older I think I began to look at the song as shallow and as my taste evolved to an appreciation of much more lavish productions from the likes of the Trans Siberian Orchestra, “The Little Drummer Boy” pretty much landed on my dispensable list of things to listen to. Recently I picked up a new Christmas release from the worship band at my church, and the first track on it was, of course, “The Little Drummer Boy”.

As I listened to a fresh rendition of this old classic, I came to realize a great truth in the song. While realizing the lyrics are fictional, let’s examine the message within the words of the song. Here was a poor little boy who had the opportunity to see the Savior when He was just a baby. He knew that this was a magnificent event, one he did not dare miss. Yet as he travelled with those possessing extravagant gifts, he took inventory of what he had and found very little. However, he journeyed on, anxious to see Jesus. When he saw Him, the little boy knew that he would need to give something to this One who was his creator. So he did what came naturally; he played his drum. He used his gift to glorify the Lord. Surely this playing of an instrument (and a loud one at that!) would mean little next to the rare and expensive gifts that others had brought. I love the last line of the song. Jesus looked at the boy and smiled. He was pleased with the boy for simply doing what he had been gifted to do. Just a boy and his drum yielded a life-changing smile from Jesus.

Are you like the little drummer boy? Do you see your gifts as small and insignificant when compared to the much more visible and note-worthy gifts of others? Do you long for the approval of Jesus but wonder what you have that would warrant such approval? Learn the truth of the story of the little drummer boy. It’s not about what you bring to the Lord. It’s about you simply showing up; it’s about you coming to see Him simply for the privilege of being able to do so. It’s also about using that with which God has blessed you. Who are we to tell God that our gift is too small to be of any use to Him? How dare we presume that our gift could not possibly glorify the One who gave us the gift!

God has gifted you with abilities and talents that He intends you to use to glorify Him. He has not given gifts that are too small or too insignificant. He has given gifts of all shapes that they may work together to magnify and reflect His love and power to everyone on the earth. In God’s eyes there are no lesser or greater gifts, there are simply gifts. All that matters is that we use what He has given us. We must never feel small or insignificant for our gift was created and given by God Himself. Use your gifts; passionately play your drum for Him. Take joy in what He has put inside of you to share with the world. As you exercise your talents, look on the face of Jesus and see Him smile at you… just you and your drum.

Know Your Enemy

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One of the biggest keys to living a life devoted to Christ is to have a clear picture of who our enemy is. You can’t live a victorious life if you don’t know who it is you need to defeat. While it is easy to think of the phrase “life is a battle” as being simply a romantic analogy, it is actually a fundamental truth of Christianity. We are engaged in battle twenty-four hours a day as we seek to live passionately for our Savior.

First, let’s make it clear who your enemy is not. Anything made up of flesh and blood is not your enemy. People are never the enemy. How could we possibly perceive any human being to be our enemy when Christ told us to love every one? Therefore, I submit that it is not possible to love your enemy because if you consider another human to be your enemy, then you do not love that person. I think what Jesus meant when He said to “love your enemy” in Luke chapter 6, was to have no enemies. It is consistent with scripture when we see that Christ did not treat those who would kill Him as His enemies. He knew who was behind their actions as evidenced by His requesting the Father to forgive the people killing Him because “they did not know what they were doing” (Luke 23:33-34). We first need to make the shift in our hearts of transforming our enemies into friends so that we can love them; we need to always see others as Jesus saw them. Satan loves to distract us and to shift our focus onto other humans. We blame other people for our mistakes or our circumstances. We cannot do this and love those same people, which is why we cannot consider anyone to be our enemies while at the same time say that we are followers of Christ. Jesus did not treat humans as enemies; He treated them as friends.

No, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but rather against spiritual forces. Yes, demons really do exist, and yes they can and do impact your life. Perhaps this is where the old “the devil made me do it” excuse came from. The devil cannot make you do anything; he or his demons can put the temptations in place to make you consider doing something, but only we – as creatures gifted with freewill – actually can choose to act on that choice. As a holiday season is upon us, perhaps it needs to be said that Santa Claus is not the enemy of Christmas, but rather it is the spirit of greed and selfishness. The Easter Bunny is not the enemy of Easter, but rather the spirit of denying the resurrection of Christ. Other nationalities are not our enemy throughout the year, but rather the spirit of pride, hate and covetousness. Demonic forces are persistently trying to shift our focus away from the good things of Christ and onto the ruinous things of self. Christ died to not only bring forgiveness for our sins but in doing so He defeated Satan and his demonic forces. He gives us the power to do the same. The good news is that the end of the story is already written and Christ, along with those who profess Him as Lord, will be victorious in the spiritual realm. While we are still on earth, however, the battle rages on.

Don’t mistake who it is that we are fighting. Don’t allow Satan to shift your focus onto the wonders of creation as being your enemy. Our fight is always against the spiritual realm, against Satan. We wage war against those forces by making Jesus the Lord of our life, doing those things he modeled for us and in so doing demonstrate His love to all of His creation. Be careful not to get caught up in actions or arguments that only advance a flesh and blood agenda. Engage only in those things that advance the Kingdom agenda. Love God and all of His creation and demonstrate that love in tangible ways every day that you have breath.

What Am I Supposed To Do With My Life?

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Are you fully utilizing your gifts? You have been uniquely equipped and created to accomplish specific tasks. Are you pursuing those tasks? I know one of the hardest questions people deal with is “what am I supposed to do with my life?” We spend countless hours, read book after book and even attend seminars to help us determine what we are to do with our life. After all, if we are created to accomplish specific tasks, how do we determine what those tasks actually are? It can seem very frustrating.

Regular readers know I’m not going to leave you hanging. You might even expect some new insight to help you determine what to do. But I have even better news… you already have within you the knowledge of what you are meant to do with your life! What are you passionate about? What is the one thing (or perhaps even multiple things) that you absolutely love to do? What is it that you could do all day and time would just fly by? These are your gifts. God has entrusted them to you that you might use them to further His mission. Every gift has a Kingdom purpose, a purpose that can be used by God to draw others to Him.

So if you’re with me so far, perhaps you have some idea of what your gifts are but you are probably still wondering how that relates to the work or tasks you were created to accomplish. I certainly don’t pretend to have any special insight into your life or circumstances, but I do know an undeniable truth: if you passionately practice the gifts God has given you, the tasks will become evident all on their own. By being available to be used and faithful to use your God-given gifts, the things you are meant to accomplish will simply become obvious. I know it sounds pretty simple compared to most of those books and seminars, but if you haven’t noticed, imperfect people (that would be folks like you and me) tend to overcomplicate the very simple message of Jesus.

There is no magic formula, no untapped fount of wisdom from which to draw out your life goals. God has already put everything you need inside of you. It is up to us to be faithful and use that with which He has blessed us. So take an accounting of your gifts. You more than likely are already aware of the things you are passionate about. Do those things, and do them often. Just as a musician must practice countless hours to hone his craft, we must practice to master the use of our gifts. We have been given the raw talent, and it is now up to us to use, refine and master that talent. Fortunately, God is a patient teacher and will always be by our side encouraging and instructing. As we become skilled at using our talents as we exercise our passions, God will undoubtedly use those very actions to glorify Himself. Don’t squelch your passions and in doing so waste your life. Practice your passion, use your gifts and live an extraordinary life of devotion to Jesus.

Doing Christmas Jesus Style

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I’m ashamed to admit that I have spent far too many hours in my life debating the usual “Christian” Christmas arguments: Jesus vs. Santa, Santa Clause or Satan Claus, and of course Christmas vs. x-mas. I was brought up to believe these were battles that we Christians had to fight; if we didn’t fight, the non-Christians would succeed in removing Christ from Christmas. I have to wonder what part of Christ’s nature we were demonstrating as we were zealously cramming our opinions down someone else’s throat. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that many of you have had these same arguments, or perhaps you still engage in them. There is, after all, something about seeing a “Merry X-Mas” sign that makes ones blood boil. How we respond is vital to our ultimate goal of following the way of Jesus. When we engage others in these types of conversations, are we demonstrating love toward them? Are we making it clear that God highly values them, that Christ died for them? Or are we simply concerned with winning the argument? What are our motives in iscussions such as these? Is it righteous anger or self-righteous one-upmanship?

I submit that regardless of our motives, we are missing the point entirely by engaging in these arguments. Let’s put aside the fact that research seems to indicate that Jesus was born in the middle of summer, making it kind of a moot point to become indignant that people aren’t celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th. Instead, regardless of why someone might be celebrating Christmas, how about if we simply embraced the season to shower gifts of love on everyone we meet? Yes, we should be doing this year round, but let’s face it, if you’re like me you often struggle mightily with this. We can brightly reflect the glory of God simply by living like our King. While others grumble and make snide remarks while waiting in a long line, let’s be the ones who smile, strike up positive conversations and perform little acts of kindness while you wait with everyone. Don’t be superficial, show genuine interest in the story of those around you. When driving in traffic (particularly the smash up derby lanes around the local mall), have patience and let others cut in front of you and even {gasp} let the other car have that parking space. You aren’t letting people walk all over you. Rather, you are allowing the love of Christ to flow through you. Take the time to smile and engage each cashier you deal with. Believe me; they are probably having a worse day than you are! It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and insanity of the season. Remember that this is not the time to join forces with the enemy, but rather to dutifully demonstrate the difference Christ can make in the life of another.

This year, let’s do Christmas differently. Let’s not get caught up in the petty and ultimately meaningless arguments that always come about this time of year. Let’s demonstrate the love of God to everyone we meet. Let’s care for the needs of those less fortunate than us. Let’s not focus on what others may define Christmas to be, and instead demonstrate what the gift of Jesus means to your life and what He can mean to theirs. Do Christmas different this year; do it Jesus style.