Even If i Walk Alone

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

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What Influences You?

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Each of us is the sum of the places we’ve been, the books we’ve read, the media we’ve watched, the music we listen to, and the people with whom we surround ourselves. We have a responsibility to monitor what is going into our minds because it has a profound impact on the health of our hearts. Jesus called us to follow Him, but we spend most of our time pursuing anyone and anything other than Christ.

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It doesn’t square with our claim that He is our Lord. So much of who we become is not directed by Jesus at all. In fact, His influence seems to be so much less than everything else that is shaping us. What influences you?

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2020 Vision

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Beginning a new year is always an opportunity to get clear on our purpose and focus more diligently on our goals. This particular new year has the advantage of coming with a built-in reminder. The year 2020 should remind us to strive for 20/20 vision for our purpose and daily tasks.

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The way to gain clarity is to recognize no goal is worthwhile if it does not engage our God-given gifts and abilities and has the mission of building His Kingdom here on earth. There is nothing we should do that doesn’t point people to Christ. Everything we do should draw others to Him.

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Your Best Life

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What are the spiritual disciplines you want to have in your life but have not yet implemented? It seems we always think there will be a tomorrow to get started in building a life that looks more like Jesus. As I write this, a new year is approaching. There is something about the end of one year and the beginning of the next that always seems like a great time to make changes in our lives. The tradition of new year’s resolutions dates all the way back to the Babylonians and continues to this day.

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Before we get caught up in this again, we need to remember Jesus taught we should not be building treasures in this life, but storing up riches in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-20). The point of following Jesus is not to build your best life now, but to build your best life after you’ve passed on from this earth.

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Urgent Enough

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Something with which I have been struggling is whether I am living my life urgent enough. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or because I’m gaining more clarity on my mission here on earth, but I have a constant suspicion my life is not being lived urgent enough. The fact is our lives are finite. They are going to end. Most of us probably do not have as much time remaining as we think we do. I know this because few of us think about the end of our lives in a meaningful way.

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As long as we are healthy, we tend to always think there will be a tomorrow, next week, and next year. Those who learn they only have weeks or months to live tend to live their lives differently; they live with an urgency about them. The rest of us? We take life as it comes, always planning for a tomorrow that may never arrive.

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Counter-Cultural

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In a world that promotes self-aggrandizement and getting ahead, living life as a humble servant is truly counter-cultural. It is to invite ridicule, derision, and condescending pity from the masses. No one chooses to live this way because it is easy or socially acceptable. We choose it because Jesus told us this is the way to live. By His own example, Jesus showed although He was superior to all, He chose to be a servant to all (John 13:3-17). He told His disciples anyone who sought to get ahead would be sent to the back of the line (Matthew 19:23-30).

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In the upside-down Kingdom of God, the way to get ahead is to stop promoting yourself and begin building up others. For followers of Christ, life is not about becoming the best known or loved. It’s about serving others in such a way they might see Jesus in us and come to know Him for themselves.

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