Even If i Walk Alone

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

Discipline

Go the Extra Mile

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As Christians I believe we are called to live lives that are a cut above the rest of the world. I don’t mean to imply that we are somehow better than everyone else, but I do believe we are to act better than everyone else. We belong to no nation, but rather are citizens of the kingdom of God; this in and of itself should dictate that we be held to a higher standard.

A positive attitude will go a long way in setting yourself apart from the crowd. The world needs no more cynical, defeated individuals. We know Jesus; we have the antidote to a joyless existence! No matter how hard our struggles, we must always be mindful of the fact that Christ died for us. We also should always remember that no matter what’s going on in our lives, no matter how bad it may seem to us, there are millions in the world who are enduring worse things. You are blessed with life, and as long as you have that blessing, remember to be thankful for it and to smile! Smiling will make you feel physically and emotionally better. Smiling at someone else will have the same effect on them. Be the kind of person you enjoy being around. No matter the circumstance or conversation, always be positive and look for the good that is surely buried within the moment.

Jesus followed through on everything He said He would do. As His followers, we need to do the same. Whether the task is at work or at home, when we say we will do something, we need to see it through. Many are tempted to give up when what they are working on becomes difficult; do not be one of those people. Always complete the tasks you said you would complete, and complete it on or before the time you said that you would complete it. People are used to being let down by other people. You can differentiate yourself by simply following through for someone. Once you commit yourself to doing so, following through quickly becomes a habit. While it should be second nature to Christ-followers, seeing our tasks through will make us stand out in the world, thereby encouraging others to find out why we are different. Then we can tell them of the love of Christ and what He means to us.

In close relation to following through on what we say we will do, is doing everything we do with excellence. Always give more than is expected of you. Work a little harder or a little longer, don’t quit until the job is worthy of Christ Himself. Always do more than you are paid to do. You will gain a reputation among all who know you as someone who can be trusted and someone who everyone wants working for them! Again, attaining a reputation such as this will lead to many opportunities to share God’s love with others. Exceed expectations every single time. Jesus lived a life of pure excellence and I believe He demands nothing less from us. He has given us gifts and talents to do His work. With tools like these, how can our work be anything short of excellent?

Set yourself apart from the world as you serve others. Be humble as you do so, remembering you do what you do in honor of Jesus. Stay positive at all times, see all your tasks through to completion, and always give more than is expected of you. In so doing, you will demonstrate the difference that Christ has made in your life.

Black Friday Stewardship

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Looking through the so-called “Black Friday” sale circulars a couple of days ago left me nearly breathless. The sheer volume of deals to be had was stupefying. Certainly I was not immune to the emotion of the occasional, “Wow, I’ve got to have that” reaction. A few years ago, I probably would have joined the Friday morning crazies, credit card in one hand and mace in the other as we all convened with the same goal in mind: be one of the lucky 25 to land the deal of the day. I’d like to think I’ve progressed in my walk with Christ over the years, and now certainly material things have far less of a grip on me as they once did. It’s a battle to be sure. Every now and then I see something I’d really like to have – not a need you understand – and I have to remind myself that I manage God’s money. I carry a card in my wallet to remind me of that fact. It’s not that God doesn’t want his followers to have the occasional nice things, but rather that he desires to bless us with far more timeless gifts like grace, mercy and love.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy of holiday shopping and all of the “must-have” bargains. This year, more than any year in recent memory, it’s all a bit surreal. The latest numbers on unemployment are over 10%, and the combined number of unemployed and underemployed is over 17%. Where are these people getting the money to shop? As a volunteer financial counselor I admit that the lack of logic in all of this makes me cringe. If you didn’t budget for this shopping day at the beginning of the month, if you don’t already have the cash set aside, you have no business being out there! All this, of course, focuses on the practical side of money management. If we’ve learned nothing else from the recent financial crisis, we should have learned that you simply can’t spend more than you have. That’s just common sense. But there’s an even greater principle that we as Christ followers must examine: the principle of managing God’s money.

As followers of Jesus, we have no money of our own. All that we have is provided by God. He blesses us with money and loans us possessions so that we might use these things to bless others and further His kingdom (Matthew 25:14-30). Everything we have is only ours temporarily; all that we have been entrusted with is to be used to serve God. Instead of asking the familiar “What would Jesus do?” question this year, instead start asking “How would Jesus spend?” Every time you pull out your wallet ask yourself if what you are about to buy fills a need or affirms love for someone. Yes, a $300 gift for someone can show them that you care, but so can a $10 gift. Why not purchase a little for those who already have a lot, and spend more on those who have nothing? Are you spending more on gifts for friends and family than you are on the homeless, the widows and the starving? I can pretty much assure you this is not how Jesus would spend. He chose to devote Himself to the outcasts rather than the well to do. The gifts He gave (through healings and miracles) were generally done for the poor and not for the wealthy. We should act in kind.

This is the time of year in Western society where we buy gifts for one another, supposedly in honor of God’s greatest gift to man, His son Jesus. But I don’t see mention of that in any advertisement. I see flat screen televisions, GPS units and video games. I don’t see any items for sale that would further the kingdom of God. I don’t see any of the Black Friday ads announcing how they will feed the homeless or clothe the shivering poor. Yet we will spend and spend, spurred on by the flashy ads and we will not think twice about the disheveled hungry person we might see along our travels. Is your spending in line with that of the kingdom or have you bought into the lies and deceit of Satan? Are you convinced that you need the latest and greatest gadgets or are you content with the greatest gift of all? This is a dangerous and telling time of the year for we who claim to follow Christ. Think twice next time you pull out your wallet. How are you managing the finances God has entrusted to you?

Your Action Plan

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How do we get there from here? How do we go from the life we are living today to one that is sold-out, wholly devoted to living the way of Christ? All of us can do a better job of loving others. Each of us can grow closer to Christ than we are today.

We need a plan. Attempting to achieve anything without a plan is a recipe for futility. Take stock of where you are today. Take fifteen minutes to sit down and write down the areas of your life that you know do not reflect Jesus. Pray and ask God to bring to mind areas in which you fall short of His design for your life. Are you self-absorbed? Are you embarrassed to tell others about Christ? Do you look the other way when someone is in need of help? How do you treat your family, is it with the same love that God showers on you? How about your neighbors, do they know you love them? Do you even know them? I don’t know what areas in your life need work; we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Take the time to get away from everything else and just hash out your areas of weakness. Make sure you don’t just ponder these areas, write them down! Some will come quickly to your mind; others will be more subtle and may even surprise you. Take the time to get it all off your heart. Listen for God to reveal your weaknesses to you. This isn’t about making you feel badly or inadequate; this is simply you taking an inventory so you can devise the best plan possible to overcome each and every weakness.

Once you have your list, take another fifteen minutes to write down one to three actions you can take to overcome that area of weakness. We’re not going to become strong in every area overnight, we’re not even going to try and tackle them all at once. But we do need a plan, and by thinking through your action steps now, it will be easier later on when you work on eliminating that weakness from your walk. Again, take the time to get this right, and get it down on paper. Get alone in silence or with some relaxing music if that helps. Put aside any distraction, and just spend the time prayerfully determining ways you can look more like Christ. There is little that pleases God more than for us to seek Him. Just listen and He will tell you what you need to know.

So there you have it; it only took thirty minutes of your day to determine how you can change your life to look more like that of Jesus. You’re on your way to becoming a true follower of Christ. You have a genuine plan of action, and that feels great. There is, of course, one caveat. To begin with a great plan gives you a tremendous boost to becoming the person God intended you to be. But when it’s all said and done, your great plan will remain just that unless you follow it up with action. Remember those action steps you came up with? Yeah, you’re going to actually have to do those things if you want a life that looks like Christ. You’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone, you’re going to have to love people you can’t stand and you’re going to have to sacrifice your time and money to help those in need. A plan without action is no better than lungs without air. It’s up to you to bring meaning to your plans.

Are you willing to follow up on your own action plan? If you’ve completed this exercise, you can see your weaknesses written down in black and white. You can also see the steps you know you need to take to better follow Christ. It’s all there in front of you; you can live the life God intended for you to live. Do you have the guts to trust Him to help you follow through? Are you willing to give up those things that have no place in the life of a follower of Christ? Are you ready to love at any cost and embark on the adventure of your lifetime? We have but one life to live; take action to make yours a life of love and become a true follower of the Way.

Following the Way

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Regular readers of this blog know we talk a lot about love.  We talk a lot about following Christ.  It’s easy to say we love people, and perhaps easy even to think we are following Christ, but what does this really mean?  What does following Christ look like in the daily grind of our lives?

If we would truly follow Christ, one of the biggest shifts we need to experience is the way we see events unfolding around us.  Instead of blaring our horn and cursing the driver who just cut us off, we need our first instinct to be to pray for that driver.  Pray for their protection and others as they drive erratically.  Pray for the person themselves… perhaps they have had a horrible day and that’s why they are behaving as they are.  Perhaps they need someone to love them; pray God would send someone into their life to show them love.  Instead of driving by someone who has car trouble, we need to instead see what we can do to help.  Watch for people in the grocery store for whom you might be able to buy some groceries.  Take a walk around your neighborhood.  Are there lawns that need mowing, any obvious outside repairs you could assist with?  All of these random acts of love come at a cost; some may cost us financially, but all will cost us our time.  All will require sacrifice and unselfishness.  To put it another way, all these acts will require love.

Therein lies the rub.  Most of us would agree that we want to be the people who do the acts described above.  But how many of us take the time to be that person?  How many of us discipline ourselves to think before we act or before we speak?  How many of us are willing to put our own agendas aside to truly be the hands and feet of Jesus?  When it comes down to it we still struggle with our own self importance and selfishness.  We would rather love ourselves, so to speak, rather than give that love to others.  Jesus showed the perfect example of a selfless life.  Look at how often He interrupted His day to take the time to touch someone in need.  This never disturbed His agenda, because His agenda was love.  Until our agenda becomes one of showing love to others, of serving others in ways big and small, we will continue to see people as an interruption.  People were not an interruption to Jesus, they were His mission.  If we are to follow the way of Jesus, they will be our mission as well.

Are we willing to give up our plans and dreams to follow Christ?  We cannot claim to be a follower of Christ and have a mission that is different from His.  Our own dreams must be able to exist in parallel with loving and serving others or those dreams must be put aside.  If the heart and purpose of our dreams is not loving and serving others, then we are not followers of Christ.  We will be like those mentioned in Matthew, where we say “Lord, did we not prophesy and cast out demons in Your name?”, and He will say those crushing words: “Depart from Me, because I don’t know you.” (Matthew 7:13-23)  Knowing who Christ is is not enough.  Believing in Christ is not enough; even demons believe in Jesus and know who He is (James 2:19).  We must follow Him with all that we are, and that means taking every opportunity to love and serve others.  Check your mission today.  Is it in line with the way of Christ?  If not, begin correcting your course immediately.  Realign your life and schedule to be in sync with God’s mission.  Seize every opportunity to love and serve those around you; make that your agenda in life.  Do this and you will truly be a follower of Christ.

A Foundation of Love

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What is it you really want out of life, what do you hope to accomplish?  In the end, what will it all matter?  I have a lot of dreams and goals, but none of them will count for anything if I don’t get one thing right; that one thing being how well I reflect the love of Christ.

Putting everything else aside for now, let’s focus on that one thing.  What do we need to do today to best reflect the love of God?  Have we become too busy, so much so that we don’t take the time each day to just stop and communicate with Jesus?  Many people set aside time at the beginning of each day to do this, and that’s great.  There’s nothing magical about what time you do it, the important thing is that you do indeed take the time.  You can choose morning, afternoon or evening as long as you don’t let anything get in the way of this time with Christ.

What inevitably tends to happen is that instead of scheduling a set time to be alone and focused on God, we try and squeeze this time amongst the other activities of our day.  This never works!  Adding God to your life will always result in a low impact and uncommitted walk.  We can’t add God to our life, He must be our life.  If there is room for anything else we can add that on, but life must start and find its centrality in Christ.

This one change, this one way of changing how we do life will prove revolutionary.  Let nothing get in the way of your time with God.  Once you have established the time, don’t let outside distractions cheapen it.  Talk to God, sit quietly in His presence, listen and dream with Him.  This may take some getting used to, but I assure you it is more than worth the effort.

Starting with God as the foundation allows us to build up other areas of our lives.  Should we face trial or failure, even if we lose everything, our foundation will remain.  Hard times never seem as bad when we realize we are defined by our foundation, not by anything else.  We are His and He is ours.  Before attempting any other drastic changes in your life, make certain your foundation is solidly set.  With Christ as our foundation, we cannot but help but pour out His love on those around us.  With His love as our foundation, it will simply permeate our entire being.  True love cannot be shaken and will never be defeated.  Set your foundation in His love, and then use that strength to encourage others to do the same.  Watch your life change as everything you do flows from a basis of love.  Reflect Him in everything you do.