Even If i Walk Alone

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

commitment

Surrender

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We can do nothing without Jesus. As long as we presume that we can, we will live a life of disappointment and failure. Our best effort on our best day will fall short of the smallest thing we can do through the power of Christ. Until we fully surrender every aspect of our lives to Him, we will have no idea what we can truly accomplish.

Most of us have grand designs and dreams for our lives. We are taught to strive to be whatever we should desire. Whatever we might accomplish in this world on our own will be tempered by a gnawing feeling that we are still missing something. Money can buy neither love nor acceptance. For a true follower of Jesus, worldly achievement will never fulfill the deepest desires of our souls. The only way to succeed in life is to surrender all that we are to Him. We have to let Him know that He can have everything that He has blessed us with: friends, family and all the accumulated “stuff”. Nothing means anything apart from Jesus.

When we surrender everything to Him we will begin to see the world in a new way. The things we used to find interesting or important will no longer have any hold on us. We will start to see the world as Jesus does. Instead of selfishly devoting our time to things that bring us pleasure and satisfaction, we will become people who take pleasure in doing things that bring glory to God. We are called to glorify Him in everything that we do. This daunting task is possible only to those who have surrendered their lives to Him. Surrender means no longer living for ourselves in any way. Everything we do must be with Him in mind; no more self-serving endeavors, no more mindless drifting, no more wasting time. As Thoreau wrote, As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” Indeed, any time not spent serving Christ is time that another soul potentially dies without knowledge of Jesus. The world is dying all around us; we have no time to waste. If we don’t show them the love of Christ, then who will?

We have to let go of the lie. We have to realize that we have no control of our life. We are either ruled by Christ or led by Satan. Jesus didn’t leave room for any sort of gray area. We are for Him or we are against Him. If we are truly for Him then we will fully surrender to Him; this is what He demands. For too long we have been content to give lip service to our devotion to Christ but live our lives as we see fit. Time has run out for Sunday morning Christians. What the world needs are Christ followers who have surrendered their lives fully to Jesus, people whose sole purpose is to reflect the love and glory of God to the world. We are called to be the Kingdom of God here on earth. We cannot be the Kingdom until we let go of all that we hold dear; we must drop everything until all we have left is Jesus and His power.

By surrendering to Him and admitting that we are powerless without Him, we will begin to live the life we were intended to live. Let us seek His power to first change ourselves and then let His glory shine through so that we might demonstrate His love to everyone and positively affect change in our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, our state, our country and ultimately our world. It all begins when we surrender our own lives to Him. From that small choice, that one conscious decision, we begin to fulfill our mission. Through His power we will change the world.

Is Jesus Enough?

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Is Jesus enough for you? If there was nothing else, no Heaven, no eternal life, just Jesus, would He be enough? Is the fact that He gave His life for you, suffered the pain of the nails for you, and drank in the depravity of your sin, enough to secure your devotion to Him? Do we want Jesus or do we simply want the good things that are promised to those who follow Him? Living your life as a follower of Jesus will surely bring with it a large share of very bad days. We live in a fallen world where the consequences of generations of sinfulness continue to compound with devastating results. We get sick, loved ones die and children suffer because of our choices and the ones made by those who came before us. Through it all we cling to Jesus, desperate for answers, despairing for hope. Would we continue to hold tightly to Him if there was no reward? Would we still love Him if there was nothing in it for us save for the love He gives in return?

We have been taught to evangelize, to tell others about Him so that we might have a hand in keeping their souls from Hell. We tell people they need Jesus so they can go to Heaven. We talk in terms of “saving” people and “adding people to the Kingdom”. Heaven becomes the goal and the reason for coming to Jesus. This misses the point of the relationship God intends for us to have with Him. He sent Jesus to redeem us because of His love for us, so that in turn, we would glorify Him through our love for Jesus. Our entire purpose for living, the whole point of coming to Jesus, is that we might show the Glory of God to the world. We were created to do good works for Jesus so that those who don’t know Him might come to see His beauty and His love. We are called to reflect the light of God to an oppressively dark world. Hope is found in the light, and the glory of God is light for the world.

We are culturally predisposed to give something to get something. When we give our lives to Jesus, the only thing we should be interested in “getting” is the opportunity to demonstrate His glory to others. The whole of our intent, the entirety of our purpose, should be focused on reflecting His beauty to everyone we meet. We turn to Jesus because we become aware of how hopeless life is without Him. We recognize the incredible love He has for us, as demonstrated by His willingness to lay down His life for our sake. There is no life outside of Christ; His death on our behalf allows us to live in Him. What does Christ get in return? He gets the chance to glorify His father through His creation. The point of life on earth is to glorify God. Every word we say, every action we take, every thought we think brings with it the opportunity to glorify God and to recognize His amazing power. Every conversation we engage in is an occasion to tell someone else of God’s love and Holiness. We must always point to the glory of God in everything we do. It is for this we were created, and for this we must live.

Is the love of Jesus alone enough for you to follow Him? Is your love for Him enough to keep you looking to Him in the trials of life? If you decided to follow Jesus simply to avoid Hell, you may need to double check your commitment. Do you really love Him or do you love that free pass out of hell? Do you love Him or are you simply enamored with the thoughts of living forever? If all else passed away, would you still love Jesus simply because of how He loves you? Is Jesus enough?

The Best of Intentions

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the best of intentions accomplishes absolutely nothing. Wishing someone well does precious little to aid them in any way. Service of any kind happens only when we put action behind our thoughts. Wishing there was no poverty in the world is noble, but ultimately useless. Selling your unnecessary possessions and giving that money to alleviate hunger will be a step towards eliminating poverty in the world. Teaching a person less fortunate than you a skill they can use to get ahead in life will not only boost their self-esteem, but this too will be another step towards the elimination of poverty. When we take action, our best intentions and wishes begin to form into reality. We will have begun to live a life that looks like Christ.

Jesus never simply wished someone well or only had a good thought for an individual in need. He took action; He reached into their need and healed their heart. Christ didn’t die with a bunch of unfulfilled plans left undone. He took action every step along the way of His life to make certain that He accomplished everything He came to do. We have become really good at making plans and creating goals. Often, however, we leave the actual doing to someone else. This is not the life that Jesus modeled for us. Jesus made a plan and then carried it through. He saw a need and immediately filled it. We have the best of intentions, but Jesus focused on the best implementations.

The difference between how we tend to see problems and How Jesus saw them, is that He actually seized the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life. We need to move from being a people of planning to become a people of action. We tend to get stuck within the process of making sure we get it right. We plan endlessly or simply put off our service until we have enough time, enough money or enough help. Jesus did not wait, He never hesitated. He was 100% certain of His mission, and every action He took moved Him closer to fulfillment of that mission. He lived with an incredible sense of urgency. He realized every moment mattered for God, and He acted out His every intention.

While we sit and plot our next activity or ministry, children continue to die of disease and malnutrition. AIDS runs rampant, devastating entire countries. Thousands are tortured each day for their religious beliefs, and millions more die without the hope of Jesus Christ. Planning ways to help is not good enough. If we would live like Jesus, we must learn to throw caution to the wind and simply, but immediately, act. It is when we give it all away that we will suddenly discover all that we’ve ever been missing. Once we stop intending and start doing we will see changes in our world that we would have never dreamed possible.

Our God is a God of action. He is not anti-planning, but He is against inaction. He calls us to do good works in His name, deeds that will bring about His Kingdom on earth. When was the last time you moved out of the planning mode and actually did something audacious for God? When was the last time you took action without thinking, simply because it was the right thing to do? God will not bless our best intentions, but He will bless our action regardless of how well we execute it. Let’s stop giving lip service to God about our commitment to Him; instead, let’s turn the best of our intentions into tangible activities of service to others.

What’s Your Motivation?

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Our world is filled with self-help books, books on how to get rich, how to lose weight, and how to have everything you “deserve”. Getting rich is a good thing as long as we do it with the motivation of giving it all away in the service of Jesus. Losing weight is a worthwhile goal, so long as we recognize we can better serve Christ if we are healthy. Trying to better your self is noble, provided you do so with the aim of becoming more like Jesus and drawing others to Him. It’s all a question of our motivation. Why do we do the things that we do? Are we seeking power and prestige or servitude and humility? Is our hope to bring recognition and honor to our self or to Jesus Christ?

Motivation is a tricky thing, and we can easily deceive ourselves. It’s easy to begin with one motivation only to see it slowly morph over time into something entirely different. We see this in politics all the time: an idealistic young person runs for office in hopes of making positive changes in their world. After some time in office they seem to forget why they are there and instead begin to seek more and more personal power. What changed? They are still doing the same job, but they are doing it with an entirely different motivation from when they began. What we do is often not nearly as important as why we do it.

The same rule applies to following Jesus. It’s really not so much what we do; it’s why we are doing it. It’s not about who we become in the eyes of the world, but who we become in Christ. God sees our heart and our motivation. He knows exactly who we are. We must constantly be asking ourselves, “Why am I doing the things I am doing?” It is important that we purposefully do all that we do for His honor and to lead others to know Him. Whatever else we achieve in life is meaningless when compared to leading one lost soul to Christ.

Motivation is what gets us out of bed in the morning (or not). When we are living a life fully focused on Jesus, getting up is easy. We have a clear purpose and mission. It’s really hard to be lazy or depressed when you know each day brings the opportunity to serve God. Who are we to have been given such a high privilege? I shake my head when I hear people say that we “deserve a nice house” or that we “deserve to be happy”. That’s not at all Biblical. What we deserve is to go to hell and spend eternity separated from Christ. That is the reality, according to Scripture, of what we deserve. From that knowledge it becomes even more breath taking to realize that, as followers of Jesus, we not only get to spend eternity with Him, but right now we have the opportunity to collaborate with Him in this exercise we call life.

Having the opportunity to serve my Lord is more than enough motivation for me. I want to live as He lived and die like He died, having finished the race with the knowledge that I did all I could for the Kingdom of God. Love God, love people; this is the perfect motivation.

What motivates you each day? Are you driven by a healthy fear and reverence for all that Christ has done for you? Do you realize that you have been delivered from that which you truly deserved and instead are being given what no one apart from Jesus Himself actually deserved? Don’t chase after “things” that will fade away in this life, money and fame and prestige. These may motivate for awhile but they will always leave you hungry for more. Only the pure motivation of serving Jesus brings lasting joy and peace. Get motivated for His sake and begin to help building His kingdom here on earth.

Desperation

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Recently I posed the question, “How desperate are you”? I feel there was more that needed to be said on this topic, so I hope you will indulge me as we dig a little deeper into this concept. Webster’s defines desperation as a “loss of hope and surrender to despair”, with despair being characterized as “the loss of all hope or confidence”. Applying the concept of desperation to our spiritual life then means we have come to the place where we have no hope or confidence in ourselves; we are without recourse on our own, and in dire need of rescue.

Since we have no hope in and of ourselves, we must find it elsewhere. Jesus offers the greatest hope of all. He promises rest, peace and eternal life spent in communion with Him. I don’t know about you, but I could use just a small portion of that in my life right now! If we would follow Him, this is our destiny. Though we are faced with great trials and heartaches, remaining focused on Jesus gives us the hope that our troubles will someday be absolved by His healing. Faith in God allows us to see a future that is infinitely better than our present. He gives us something for which to strive. The Holiness of Jesus Christ is the light at the end of our tunnel. We must come to realize that there is no hope without Jesus, but with Him we have the ultimate promise of a satisfied and glorious life.

Just as we have no hope outside of Jesus, neither do we have any confidence except in Him. Only the Son of God is reliable without exception; only He will be there for us without fail. We rise up against trials only to be knocked down, but He has conquered them all. Even death proved to be no match for Christ. There is nothing He does not have the power to defeat. Your temptations, illnesses and addictions pose no challenge to His love and power. We are helpless to defeat sin on our own and we are unable to achieve anything of eternal worth unless He is working through us. Despite our bluster and pretense, our substance is ridiculously small. We are weak and fragile beings, often just one obstacle away from throwing in the towel. The only one who will never let is down is Jesus Christ. He is the calm in any storm and the power in every adversity. If we rely on ourselves, we will die in our failure; but if we put our faith in Jesus, we can know that He will be our strength and our life.

To be desperate for Jesus is to realize that He is our only hope and that we can do nothing without Him. Left to our own devices, we will fail and we will die, unfulfilled and lost. If we are still holding on to the belief that we are able to do anything on our own, we believe the lie of Satan. In fact the only thing we can do in our own strength is to turn away from God. In this we see the ultimate breakdown, the failure to recognize the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our best efforts result in total inadequacy. All we can do apart from Jesus is fail. With Him, all we can do is live and in a manner that is beyond our wildest dreams and expectations.

Search your heart. Are you truly desperate for Him? Have you come to the point where you have no hope for your life and no confidence in anything you do? This is a sacred place, because it is in the midst of this condition that we finally become ready to surrender fully to the Lordship and authority of Jesus. It is now that we may experience the totality of His love. He is desperate to share Himself with us, and we are in desperate need to receive Him. Put away your pride, your ego and your sense of self sufficiency. Be desperate, for in this there is life.