Even If i Walk Alone

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

2 Timothy

Prepare for Persecution

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What is certain, but not being preached from many pulpits today, is that persecution is coming. Why pastors are not preparing their flocks for the coming trouble is beyond me. I listen to sermons from various churches constantly as I seek to learn and understand more about God and His Word. What I’m not hearing from most pulpits (thankfully, there are a few exceptions) is an urgency to repent and prepare for what is coming.

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There is no talk of how to prepare for persecution, and resources on the topic seem scarce. But Jesus told us the world will persecute us because of His name (John 15:20-21; Matthew 24:9). Because most of us live in places where persecution has not been a reality in our lives, we’ve become lazy, blind to the signs of this age (Matthew 24:3-31), and so comfortable in this world that we are ill-prepared for the coming persecution.

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Running the Race

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Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth contains the familiar passage where he compares living life for Christ with running a race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). It’s a great analogy not only because the road we travel is long but also because of the discipline it requires to stay on the path. Any form of athletics is by its nature a competitive process.

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Everyone who competes wants to finish first, but only one can. In some events, like a marathon, participants are content to only finish, regardless of winning or losing. Both hold lessons for us. No one runs a race without a goal, and no one achieves their goal without putting in a lot of hard work before the race ever begins.

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Nothing is Sacred

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The lack of a sense of reverence and awe in our churches and our lives has been weighing heavily on me in recent days. I touched on this briefly in my last post (see “A Devoted Life”). There is something else troubling me about the way we “do” church in our modern culture. Believers today rarely see prayer as being a sacred approach to the throne of God.

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Almost every church I have attended in the past thirty-five years uses prayer as a transition vehicle from one part of the service to the next. It’s the time when the worship team ascends or exits the platform or simply signals the end of the greeting and the beginning of the service. Prayer has become a vehicle instead of being understood as the great privilege and gift that it is. Even in our church gatherings, it appears nothing is sacred.

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No Substitute

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With all the turmoil in the world, it can be difficult to know how to respond. Do you speak out or hold your tongue? Should you join the crowd or stand with the resistance? When it comes to figuring out how you should live and which direction to go, there is no substitute for God’s Word. We do not place enough emphasis on the study of God’s Word today.

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So many preachers are busy delivering self-help sermons and trying to read themselves into the Bible that we’ve lost the basic need and discipline of reading and studying the Scriptures. Bible reading is not a tired and dusty practice. It is as essential as oxygen in the life of every believer.

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The Word of God

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Can you be a Christian and reject the Bible as God’s inspired and inerrant word? More and more people believe you can. A recent Lifeway Research survey commissioned by Ligonier Ministries finds that 53% of Americans do not believe the Bible is literally true. That’s disturbing, but not all that unexpected. What’s shocking to me is that 26% of those who identify as evangelical Christians also hold that the Bible is not literally true. If you don’t believe the Word of God, how is it you know, much less believe, the gospel?

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If you reject the Bible as God’s Word, you reject Jesus being who He said He is. Those who reject Jesus as being who He says He is cannot be Evangelical Christians. Either the survey takers were presenting a flawed definition of what it means to be an Evangelical Christian, or someone terribly deceived those responding and sent them toward an eternity far more tragic than they imagine.

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