Even If i Walk Alone

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

commitment

Isn’t That Fascinating?

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One of my most influential mentors had a unique way of looking at the inevitable challenges and obstacles life brings our way. While my reaction might be one of discouragement or despair, he would look at the situation and say, “Isn’t that fascinating?” He didn’t fret or get upset, but would sit marveling in fascination. While a little cliché to say, he always saw opportunity within the dilemma. I admit to never mastering this mindset, which in some ways resembles the Apostle Paul’s admonition to rejoice in all things (Philippians 4:4).

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Just as joy can be difficult to find amid tragedy, fascination is often the furthest thing from my mind when looking at the chaos of our world. But these times are fascinating in both their level of depravity and departure from the perfect life God intends for us to live. We all will do well to shift our perspective as we look toward the future.

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Scenes From the Rebellion

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Everywhere you look, you will see examples of our rejection of God’s Word. I call them “scenes from the rebellion”. All you have to do is open the scriptures and read the commands of God to see how we revolt against His design for how we are to live. Reading God’s Word is a giant indictment of our selfishness and desire to make ourselves higher than God (Romans 1:21-23).

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Today I was reading James where he writes, “… Everyone must be slow to speak and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness” (James 1:19-20). It’s as if James was looking at our modern culture and writing down the opposite of everything we practice. This is how far we are from living in obedience to God’s Word. We are living 180 degrees from God’s standard.

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More Than Emotions

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Modern churches place an enormous amount of focus on the emotional experience of being a Christian. Worship teams craft songs and services to evoke an emotional response from those listening. Sermons focus on engaging stories rather than the plain truth of Scripture. And I don’t know about you, but it’s a rare day when my mailbox (physical and virtual) doesn’t find an impassioned plea for help from some ministry or another.

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Social media adds to the play for our emotions by hyping the latest heresy or cause to which the church should be attending. Humans are emotional beings and Christians are no exception. But following Jesus involves more than emotions. Jesus said we must love Him not only with all our heart (emotion) but also with all our strength, mind, and soul (Mark 12:30).

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Every Sin

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Did you ever wonder why there is such little detail given about what Jesus endured on His way to the cross (Matthew 27:27-31; Mark 15:16-20; John 19:1-3)? Hollywood productions spend a lot of time focusing on the abuse being heaped upon Jesus, but the Bible almost glosses over the torturous details. The specifics we do have should be enough to sicken any decent human being. Perhaps the reason the Spirit did not lead the Biblical writers to provide more details is that the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain of enduring the sins of the world (Isaiah 53:4-6).

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If the point of the story was the horrific murder of a good man, then I’m certain we wouldn’t still be talking about it two centuries later. But a man who willingly takes on the sin every human has ever or will ever commit to save those very sinners from eternal damnation? That’s a story worth telling over and over again (1 Peter 2:24).

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Outsiders

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If you follow Jesus with any consistency in this life, you’re going to find yourself as a cultural outsider. There’s no way around it. Our values are different. Our morals are different. Even our goals in life are different. We are not of this world, and we do not live like we are of this world (John 17:14-16). The very act of following Jesus Christ puts you on the outside, looking in on the rest of the world. You’ll be weird.

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The people of this world will hate, despise, and maybe even kill you. For certain, they will never understand you. Jesus lived on the outside too and he promised we would face trouble (John 16:33). He told us in advance that the world would hate us because it hated him (John 15:18-19). Authentic followers of Jesus will never be on the inside of the coolest and most popular circles. They will always be outsiders.

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