Even If i Walk Alone

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

commitment

Our Opinions

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We humans love our opinions. We have opinions about everything! If you don’t believe me, just ask someone for their opinion on anything, and I guarantee you will get an answer. Our opinions create our identity, or so we believe. It’s who we are. They run the gamut from food, style, décor, geography, language, and politics. And that’s just scratching the surface! Our opinions color each of our days. They control what we eat, who we’ll talk to, and what we’ll say.

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To the casual observer, we are the sum of our opinions. You might say they are what make you unique. So, when Jesus invades our lives, it can be a most uncomfortable revelation to discover we must surrender our opinions to Him. Not just some of them. Not just those we hold to with a little less ferocity. All of them. If we want to follow Jesus, we must die to our opinions and allow Him to replace them with His own.

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Wholly Devoted to Christ

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The primary goal of my life is to live it wholly devoted to Christ; to become the person He created me to be. My second goal is to instruct and encourage others to do the same. I’ve read and listened to countless exhortations to put God first in your life, or to live a Jesus-centered life. I’ve written those very words on this blog many times.

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What is often missing from these exhortations (and I stand guilty here as well) is an explanation of how to do this in practical terms. How do we center our lives on Jesus and live wholly devoted to Him when myriad distractions are assaulting us every day? How do we live for Heaven and still survive on earth?

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Die to Christ

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If we can’t die to Christ, we cannot live for Him. This is true in my life and yours.  And yet, as I look around, I see so few who are taking this to heart. I see and hear those who call themselves Christians spew venom on social media, pontificate on politics, and concern themselves with so much having nothing to do with the Kingdom. Believe me, I am not immune. I am not some super-Christian who has it all figured out and diligently picks up his cross every day without fail.

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This message applies to me as much, if not more than, it does to everyone else. We can’t continue to live the way we do and call ourselves followers of Jesus. We are living our lives for most of the same things the world does and deceiving ourselves by thinking God is looking the other way.

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Time for God

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Despite promises to the contrary, technology continues to overcomplicate and frustrate our lives. Having spent most of my career in the information technology field, I speak not as a Luddite but as an enthusiast. Still, it doesn’t take an expert to recognize how technology has exacerbated, and sometimes even led to, the growing sense of despair and sense of being overwhelmed so many are experiencing.

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Social media fuels both the cancel and comparison culture while stealing away the moments we used to spend in the actual company of people or in quiet times of reflection. Our busy lives crowd out any time for God. He exists only in the margins of our lives if we allow Him entrance at all.

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Taking the Long View

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Joshua Bogunjoko is the International Director for SIM International, a missionary organization with a worldwide outreach. Given his position, he has a unique and informed perspective on what it means to follow Christ in hard times and circumstances. Mr. Bogunjoko writes, “Gaining God’s perspective amid adversity means taking the long view. Our experience of adversity today may be for the work of God in days, months, and years to come. It may be for someone’s encouragement a generation from now.”

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It often seems the work we do for Jesus doesn’t matter. No matter how much we pray, study, and serve, it’s difficult to see the needle moving. But God is always at work, weaving together every event on the human stage—now, in the past, and in the future—to bring about His sovereign will.

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