Even If i Walk Alone

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

focus

Looking Back

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This is the time of year when many are writing about looking back over the past year, recounting lessons learned, blessings, and obstacles. Looking back is helpful only insomuch as it focuses us on the beauty and blessings of our Savior. There is a danger in looking back that we focus too much on ourselves and not on God. Considering what we have accomplished and overcome can inadvertently lead to self-satisfaction and pride.

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Reflecting on our problems and challenges can lead us down a road of discouragement and despair rather than focusing on the One who provides everything we need. If we visit it lightly, the past can teach us a few lessons and serve as a wonderful reminder of the provision of our God. Better to leave it quickly though and focus instead on the work ahead.

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Finding Hope

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Where are you finding hope these days? Perhaps a first question should be, “Where are you looking for hope?” More and more people are rejecting the authority or even the existence of God, and then wondering why depression and suicide are on the rise. There can never be genuine hope outside of God. Once we deny Him, there is no hope remaining.

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As apologist William Lane Craig has said, “This is the reality in a universe without God: there is no hope; there is no purpose.” So, if you are trying to find hope while leaving God out of the equation, you are fighting a losing battle. You will find your only hope—in fact, the only hope of the world—in Jesus.

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Thinking Eternally

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As people, we obsess over numbers. We count dollars to quantify net worth, attendees to measure churches, and followers to determine popularity on social media. But did you ever stop to think that numbers are a product of humanity, not of eternity? Counting is irrelevant to God because numbering anything in eternity would be futile.

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How many years will we spend in Heaven with God? That’s an unanswerable question because years have no meaning when one is thinking eternally. My point is the very measure we use on earth has no meaning when we are thinking eternally. And that is how we should spend our days, focused on what is coming rather than what we have right now.

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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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