Even If i Walk Alone

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

Discipleship

Living like Jesus

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Jesus is Lord,Lord of your life,Jesus first,Francis Chan,compassion,active faith,faith without works,homeless

I recently read of an individual who decided to move outside his comfort zone to live a life that looks like Jesus. Josh is 20 years old and had befriended an elderly homeless woman. One night she got beat up pretty badly, and Josh offered to take her to a friend’s house where she could stay for awhile. The woman wasn’t comfortable leaving her usual surroundings. So what did Josh do? He didn’t walk away thinking he had done what he could. He didn’t berate her for not accepting help. No, he decided to start sleeping on the street next to her to provide protection. What a beautiful picture of Jesus! Josh went to where the hurting person was rather than wait for them to come to him.

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Lord of the New Year

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Jesus is Lord,Lord of your life,Jesus first,God first,intentional living,purpose driven life,rick warren,new years resolution,life plan,discipleship

I touched on this a bit before (see “Take Action”), but with the New Year now underway, I think it’s important to emphasize the value of intentional living over the next twelve months. How will you be different and more like Jesus when December rolls around? What will you have done to glorify Him as you look back over this year? One thing is certain, if you don’t plan how you will get somewhere you’ve never been, you will never arrive. Spiritual growth doesn’t happen by accident. You don’t wake up one day and discover you are a disciple of Jesus. Believing in Christ is easy. Becoming the person He created you to be is difficult and requires an incredible amount of work on your part.

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The Key to Following Christ

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Lord of your life,Jesus first,7 habits,key to christianity,how to follow jesus,I surrender all,surrendering all,forsaking all

These days it seems to be the rage to write articles espousing the “The 3 Keys to This” or the “7 Steps to That”. Everyone seems to be looking for a quick fix or at least some concrete guidance to getting to where they want to be. It made me ponder what I might consider to be the keys to following Christ. If I could boil it all down to a few concepts, what would they be? As I mulled it over, I kept coming back to a single thought: think less about yourself. Perhaps following Jesus really is that simple.

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Serving Better

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Jesus is Lord,Lord of your life,Jesus first,God first,goals,one year plan,draw closer to Go,filfill your potential,potential,be all you can be,life plan,personal growth,spiritual growth

How could you better serve Christ in the coming year? In what ways could you intentionally change your life that would allow you to walk more closely with Him? It should be our goal to always be striving to look more like Jesus, to walk more closely in His footsteps. This won’t just happen, we must purposefully decide to seek Him more fully and make a plan for how to do that. If we want our relationship with Christ to grow more in the next year, if we want to live our lives fully devoted to Him, it must begin with a conscious decision and disciplined follow-through.  I’ve got three ideas to help you in this endeavor.

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A Small Group Primer

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intentional community,shane claiborne,the simple way,discipleship,small groups,life groups

Perhaps no single idea has been so universally embraced by the church over the past 30 years as that of the small group. It is the strategic backbone of larger and smaller congregations alike. Too often these groups become nothing more than just another clique or a social club. Friendships develop, and there is a passing attempt at working through a Bible study booklet, but rarely do you find these groups engaged in the mission of Christ. There are exceptions; perhaps you belong to one of these. I do know of groups building intentional communities with tremendous outreach; they exemplify the early church. However,  if you belong to one of the more common implementations of a small group – one not engaging your culture – then it’s time to ask some hard questions.

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