Even If i Walk Alone

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

commitment

Uncomfortable Truths

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We all encounter uncomfortable truths in our life. Some we can do little about on our own. Others are personal and we bear the full responsibility for them. As followers of Jesus, one of those uncomfortable truths is we’re not as much like Jesus as we’d like to be because we don’t want to be.

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We choose whether we will follow God’s ways or our own. It’s easier for us to blame the devil or the culture for the way we live. But the uncomfortable truth is we are as close to God as we want to be. Our lives look like that of Jesus only as much as we choose to align ourselves with Him.

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Unity

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Depending on the source, there are between 1,100 and 43,000 different denominations under the umbrella of Christianity. The best and most agreed-upon definition of what makes up a denomination puts the number somewhere between 9,000 and 30,000. It is important to consider those numbers in light of the last prayer Jesus prayed for His disciples before going to the cross to be crucified for our sins (John 17:20-22). He asked the Father that His disciples would be unified.

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Jesus prayed His followers would be one, just as He and His Father were one. Reflecting on that, how would you say the Church is doing in living out His desire that we would be unified as one? Instead of a vibrant body moving in harmony with one another, we have allowed our petty differences and selfish opinions to divide the body not once, not twice, but over 10,000 times. That’s not unity, and it shows the Church is falling woefully short of what Christ intended it to be.

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Personal Holiness

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God calls each of us to live a life of personal holiness. This goes much deeper than having a daily prayer time or attending a service on the weekend. Personal holiness is more than what we do. It’s also about what we don’t do. It’s what we choose to think about, and what we refuse to dwell on. Personal holiness will affect the words we say and those we don’t speak.

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It’s all-consuming. When we allow the holiness of God to permeate our entire being, everything changes. Everything looks different. We cannot afford to let even the smallest hint of sin take up residence in our hearts because it will eventually infect our entire body.

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Focus on Today

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The wise man Agur gave us a wise principle when he asked God to give him “just enough for today” (Proverbs 30:8-9). Jesus affirmed the wisdom of the principle when He taught His disciples to pray. He said for them to ask for God to provide them with their “daily bread”. Whenever you find an Old Testament teaching affirmed in the New Testament, it bears extra attention as we know God is teaching us an important lesson meant to last throughout the ages.

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When we live with our focus on today alone, we are showing obedience to Christ and a faith that trusts Him to take care of everything that’s coming. We free ourselves from the anxiety and worry of an uncertain future in this world.

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God is Not Safe

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Our God is not safe, but we like to pretend that He is. The Western version of Christianity has become fat, lazy, and oblivious to what most of our brothers and sisters in Christ face on a day-to-day basis. Not only has our version of God become perhaps irreparably skewed, but we export that version to other countries, leaving them ill-prepared when persecution comes to their door.

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I’m not sure who first came up with the idea that following Jesus would dissolve all your problems and leave you happy, healthy, and wealthy. But they obviously did not read God’s Word. Jesus was clear that the world will hate, persecute, and kill us (Matthew 10:17-22). When we read Jesus saying He came to bring a sword and not peace (Matthew 10:34), isn’t it clear that God is not safe?

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