Even If i Walk Alone

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

I Timothy

Train in Godliness

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In 1 Timothy 4:7-8, Paul exhorts Timothy to train in godliness. That’s a good plan for our lives. Not only is it scriptural, but it is also a necessity in the life of a disciple of Jesus. What better way to spend our days than training in godliness? Each of us devotes our lives to something. We all know what that is for us. It’s where we spend our time, energy, and money.

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And if we aren’t spending those resources on learning more about God and doing the things He commands us to do, what’s the point? What is the measure of our life? But if we spend our resources to train in godliness, we will live a life worth living. We will hear God say to us, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

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Simplify

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As I continue to seek ways to simplify my life, I’m amazed at how complex it continues to grow. There seems to be a never-ending flow of demands on my time, opportunities to pursue, and responsibilities with which to engage. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess your experience is similar. We are a busy generation of humans. As I often tell my team at work, being busy is not synonymous with being productive.

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I fear many of us have allowed our lives to become so busy we cannot be productive for the Kingdom. We’re so consumed with the fleeting things of this world we are missing out on the great eternal work left to be done.

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Giving Away Our Excess

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I once read our excess money is given to us to share with others. This is something I’ve tried to incorporate into my own life because I feel there is good Biblical precedence for it. Early Christ followers shared all they had with each other (Acts 4:32-35). This seems to go even beyond simply giving away our excess. In the Old Testament, God gave laws commanding people to not harvest the edges of their fields so the poor could come and get some food for their families (Leviticus 23:22).

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Jesus told us not to hoard our wealth (Luke 12:16-21). The next question I generally get when discussing this is, “How do I determine how much is excess?” To me, this question is always the result of a scarcity mindset.

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Follow the Money

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Do you want to know what’s really most important to you? Follow the money. Are you curious how close you are following the Lord? Follow the money. If you are wondering if your priorities are in order, well, you guessed it… follow the money. It’s easy to say we believe in something or hold some value important, but actions never lie. Neither does where we spend the money God has entrusted to our care.

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How we spend our money always tells the truth about who we are. Your bank account has no hidden agenda; it only has the mission you give to it. As pastor Aaron Brockett recently said, “Your heart will follow your money so send your money where you want your heart to be.”

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A Few Things

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Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Many will never reach the Kingdom of Heaven for they have fixed their eyes on wealth. They are sick for the things of the world. They live proudly through luxury. But those who are serious about salvation must settle this beforehand in their mind. All we possess is given to us to use for sufficiency, which one may acquire by merely a few things.” For those of us in the West, this should be especially convicting. We live proudly in our luxury.

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We take more for granted than half the world can even imagine possessing. All this extravagance will count for nothing when we stand before God and give an account of our lives. He will ask what we did with what He entrusted to us, and we will only be able to hang our heads and admit we hoarded it for ourselves (Luke 12:16-21).

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