Even If i Walk Alone

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

I Corinthians

He Chose to Save You

by

There is perhaps no greater beauty than the fact that God chose to save you. Out of the billions of people who have ever lived, He chose to save you. Let that sink in. How can we do anything except praise the Lord and fall on our face in thankfulness at this most astounding and irrational truth? So many will live their lives without Jesus and die with their sins unforgiven (John 8:24).

grace,mercy,salvation,holiness,He chose to save you

That could have been you or me. But for some reason, He spares us the agony and torment of an eternal Hell and gifts us eternity in the presence of our precious and loving Savior (Revelation 21:3-4). To our finite minds, in some ways, this doesn’t seem fair.

[Read more…] about He Chose to Save You

Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever

by

Do you ever think that we’re getting this whole thing wrong? We know our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Isaiah 43:6-7), but that isn’t the driving force for most of our lives. We don’t wake up thinking about God and how we can glorify Him. And if we do, the busyness and distractions of this world soon overwhelm and overrule our intentions.

commitment,discipleship,Wesminster catechism,priorities,purpose,glorify God and enjoy Him forever

The Apostle Paul said whatever we do, we should do for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). That requires a constant focus on Jesus, but our preoccupation is instead with ourselves. We know in our hearts this life isn’t about us, but we’ve bought into the ways of the world to the point we’ve forgotten the point of it all.

[Read more…] about Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever

Following Jesus Is Hard

by

Let me state the obvious: following Jesus is hard. If you think following Jesus is easy, my bet is you aren’t following Him in the manner His Word prescribes. It’s easy to say you follow Jesus. It’s even easy to place your faith in Him. None of that requires anything on your part, and you can take it back whenever that decision becomes inconvenient.

following Jesus is hard,commitment,discipleship,discipline,salvation,surrender,works

The difficult work comes in living for Christ every waking moment of your life. As people born into sin, we all have an innate and outsized portion of selfishness that dominates our motives and desires (Romans 7:18). Keeping that alone in check often takes what feels like a Herculean effort. There’s nothing easy about living a holy life, so there’s nothing easy about following Jesus.

[Read more…] about Following Jesus Is Hard

It’s All True

by

A recent survey of American evangelical pastors revealed 20% don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve. That means 1 out of every 5 pastors does not believe God’s Word is authoritative. Even stranger, 16% did not believe in miracles and 1% did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. What this shows us is that mainline evangelical pastors think some of the Bible is true, but not all of it.

it's all true,discipleship,faith,God's Word,salvation,creation,evolution,six days,adam and eve,answers in Genesis

It means one out of every five pastors thinks they can tell which parts of Scripture are true and which aren’t (spoiler: it’s all true!). With what wisdom do they make this determination? With the fallible wisdom of man instead of the infallible wisdom of God, of course (1 Corinthians 1:20–25)!

[Read more…] about It’s All True

A High Bar

by

One recent afternoon, I was conversing with a close friend of mine who is not a follower of Christ. I would peg him as agnostic, but he is a thoughtful and intelligent man, so while he disagrees with my faith, we can have civil and rational discussions about it. In the conversation, he surprised me with a comment that was both blunt and telling. He said his problem with Christianity was the forgiveness issue.

high bar,salvation,commitment,discipleship,eternal life,lordship,works

He said he could never sacrifice his own son, and his feeling is that instead of forgiving mankind, God should raise the bar and demand more from us. I thought he was going to say he struggled with forgiveness so couldn’t conceive of God forgiving us, but he went another direction. He considers a high bar a better solution than a merciful gift.

[Read more…] about A High Bar