Even If i Walk Alone

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

I John

You Love the World

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Over the past year, I’ve probably referenced (1 John 2:15) more than any other verse. I keep coming back to it because its message is so clear and sobering: “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.” Do you love the world? If so, then you don’t love God. It’s a harsh statement, but impossible to avoid.

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There isn’t any wiggle room in the verse to accommodate how much we love the world, so we can’t rationalize and say we love God more than the things of this world. God has never been one to accept partial love. We cannot serve two masters; we will love the one and hate the other (Matthew 6:24).

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Whatever We Desire

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Many claim the promise of 1 John 5:14-15, thinking that prayer is the way of getting whatever we desire. A quick reading reveals that it does say whatever we ask, God will give to us. As creatures of our culture, we don’t go any deeper than what makes us feel good. Like everything else in modern Christianity, we’re content to skim the surface of the passage, make it apply to our lives, name it, and claim it.

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This is what decades of false teaching, poor exposition, and outright heresy have done to the thinking of the contemporary church. The good news is, yes, Jesus does promise to give us whatever we ask. The bad news for those seeking an easy avenue to health and wealth is this promise comes with a condition that one can only understand by a careful reading and understanding of this rich and deep promise.

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The Only Answer is Jesus

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In a world consumed with hate, fear, immorality, and greed, where can you turn? The only answer is Jesus. You knew that was coming, and perhaps you think it’s trite or cliché. That doesn’t make it untrue. What’s happening doesn’t surprise God, and it shouldn’t surprise us either. He told us this was coming in His Word. Jesus said, “There will be wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6).

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It’s been this way since sin entered the world and it becomes increasingly more vicious the longer sin keeps compounding. Until the Lord returns to reign, there will not be peace on earth. Until Christ comes for His bride, the Church will have trouble in this world (John 16:33). There is no magic fix for what ails our planet. There is only Jesus.

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God’s Word, Not Our Feelings

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There is much emphasis on feelings today, both in the Church and in the culture at large. If you watch religious programming, you won’t have to wait long until you hear a preacher talking about the feelings that will come over you when the Holy Spirit takes hold. Instead of emphasizing what the Bible teaches, these men and women promote experiencing the power of God’s Spirit through the manifestation of laughter, falling down, convulsing, or babbling unintelligible nonsense.

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Within the culture, the prevailing attitude is people can and should do whatever makes them feel good. All of this is in direct conflict with the truth of scripture. As Christians, we must always defer to God’s Word, not our feelings.

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Reframing

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I heard a story of an airline pilot whose goal was to become the best pilot in the business. He framed everything in his life around that industry. When his friends were talking about Paris, he would interject about the time he flew there. When the topic was food, he would talk about the improving quality of airline food. No matter the subject, he would find a way to relate it to flying.

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His worldview allowed him to see everything in the context of what he held most dear. This reframing of every situation and conversation holds a great lesson for living the Christian life. If we were all as dedicated to our faith as that pilot was to his passion, our love for Christ would grow exponentially. No one would ever question the purpose of our lives.

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