Even If i Walk Alone

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

Discipline

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.

Let It Go

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Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang said, “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.  The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”  Which begs the question, of what do we need to let go to better serve Christ?  What are those things that need to be put aside?

In our modern culture we tend to fill our lives with so much.  We have family commitments, work commitments and personal commitments.  It can be hard to find a moment of peace.  Television, radio, cell phones, the internet (you are reading this online after all!!); so much calls out and begs for our focus and attention.  Entire industries have arisen with the single goal of capturing our attention.  Of course everything looks appealing and it seems like such a good idea at the time.  Suddenly we have overfilled our capacity and overbooked our schedules.  More often than not it is Christ that is the first thing to get squeezed out.  We need to let something go.

Being full of Christ means there is no room for any of this other stuff we may have in our life.  It seems we’ve gotten it backwards.  Our lives are so full that we’ve run out of room for Christ.  I think Satan smiles when He sees this.  He barely had to lift a finger to get our eyes off of Jesus.  He simply had to tempt us with the modern day fruit from the tree of what society has defined as “life”.  We have not only taken a bite, but we have made a feast from this tree.  We grab all we can and eat until we are full.  But where is our first love?  Where is the One who saved us from a life of pointlessness and despair?  He has become the forgotten Man.

We need to go on a diet.  Like all diets, the best ones are those that make slow but steady progress.  Sure, simply casting off all the trappings of modern society all at once may work for awhile, and it may even work permanently for a few.  But by and large, experience and research has shown that lasting results comes from slow but steady changes.  We need to make the shift to being full of Christ and empty of everything else.  We need to be so full of love that it overflows and permeates everything we do.  There is no room for anything other than this in a life fully devoted to Christ.  There is no half way to living a full life; being full is all or nothing.

So what are you full of today?  Is it Christ and His love or is it the pleasures and accomplishments of our culture and society?  What do you need to let go today?  Write a list of everything in your life that is not contributing to the goal of being completely filled by the love of Christ.  Take the time to get it all down on paper.  Now look at your list and pick one item that you will begin eradicating from your life this week; write down a plan for how you will let it go, then execute that plan.  Once this particular item is out of your life, move to the next one on the list and do the same with it.

We all want to live a full life.  The only question is with what will we fill it?  Will it be with self-importance, achievement, popularity, the glitz of Madison Avenue?  Or will it be with the love, humility and gentleness of the love of Jesus Christ?  What will ultimately matter when all is said and done?  What is keeping us from being truly full of Christ today?  It’s time to let it go.

Check Your Balance

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Let’s change.  Let’s do it now.  When we wake up tomorrow, let’s determine to stop wasting our time and effort and start living the life we desire to live.  Let’s stop seeking to serve ourselves and instead serve the one who gave His life for ours.  Let’s determine to fight every temptation and to embrace every opportunity to love and live in the manner Christ demonstrated for us.

To lead the life we desire requires balance.  Satan loves to use our weaknesses to knock us off course.  We need to identify those weaknesses and develop a plan to strengthen those areas of our life.  Some have problems staying focused when they’re tired, others when they’re hungry and others when they lack energy due to their physical conditioning.  If any of these apply to you, or whatever your weak spot might be, it is a simple choice to correct the problem.  Determine to go to bed at a time that will give you 7 or 8 hours of sleep each night.  Eat regular small, healthy meals.  Start walking 30 minutes per day.  As we start to feel in control of our lives, we will see more success in our spiritual life.

All of God’s creation demonstrates balance, and we are certainly no exception.  Once we have achieved balance we can fully and confidently focus on living a life modeled after Christ.  So where do you struggle?  Right now, write down your main area of weakness; if you have multiple areas of weakness, let’s tackle them one at a time.  Now that you’ve identified your weakness, the next step is to write out an action plan to overcome with that weakness.  Be specific; set milestones and goals to measure your progress.  Finally, execute the plan.  Each day you should review your plan and stick with it.  Remember, the whole goal of doing this is to lead a more effective life for Christ.  The wonderful side effect is that as we achieve better and better balance, we will find ourselves living measurably happier lives, lives pleasing to God!

How about you?  Are you willing to do what it takes to get your life in balance and start on the path of more closely following Christ?    We honor Him by restoring balance to our lives.  As our balance improves we will find a richer life waiting for us.  We will find more time to study His word, more time to love others and more time to bask in His peace.  It’s all about focus, and focus is the result of balance.  If you find yourself not living a life focused on Christ, check your balance.  Make corrections where necessary, and do it today.