Even If i Walk Alone

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

James

Few Are Going to Heaven

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The greatest burden of my life is the conviction that so many, perhaps even most people who proclaim to be Christians are not. It’s not the first time I’ve written about this, and it won’t be the last. That’s what happens when a burden is constantly crushing down on you. When I look around at the modern church, and even more broadly at the industries that have sprung up around it, my soul aches for those who think they are on one path but in reality are on another.

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To quote J. C. Ryle, “According to the men of the world, few are going to hell; According to the Bible, few are going to heaven.” The great tragedy of our day is not that we aren’t bringing more lost people into the body of Christ, but that so many lost people believe they are already in the body of Christ.

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Genuine Repentance

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After recently writing about repentance (see “Repentance”), I didn’t think I’d be revisiting the topic so soon. Then I came across the following quote from Puritan Josias (Josiah) Shute concerning genuine repentance: “True repentance is when a man grieves for his sin to the extent that he abandons it.” It is one thing to think we are sorry for disobeying the commands of God. It is another to resolve from doing it again.

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But it is something else altogether for our sin to so grieve us that we abandon any thought of pursuing it in the future. We don’t just quit repeating the sin for a moment, or even for an extended period, but become so destroyed by even the thought of revisiting such sin that we scarcely even entertain a thought of it for the rest of our lives.

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What Sin Is

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Each of us wrestles with the problem of sin. To understand how to win this battle, we must first define the terms. What is sin? Sin is any violation of God’s Law (1 John 3:4). We know everyone is guilty of this (Romans 3:23). Holiness is the goal because our lives are supposed to look like Jesus. We can’t look like Jesus when we are continuing to indulge in the same sinful patterns that we always have.

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None of us can live a sinless life; only Jesus was able to accomplish that. But each of our lives should move closer to that ideal every day. God’s law is unchanging, and He has plainly stated what violating His law involves (Mark 12:28-31). When we love anything more than God or when we do not love others as much as we love ourselves, we are sinning. There is no vagueness about what sin is.

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We Must Obey

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As we continue to examine if we truly love God (see “Do We Love Him” and “We Must Keep His Commands”), let’s first lay a little theological groundwork. We know all scripture is God-breathed and inspired by His Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21). This means every word, and therefore every instruction, in the Bible, is a command of Christ. He is the Word of God in the flesh (John 1:1-3).

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Every time the scripture instructs us, we must obey. That is what it means to love Christ (John 14:15; 1 John 5:2-4). The book of James teaches us those who would live lives acceptable to God will keep themselves unstained by the world (James 1:27). Therefore, if we love Jesus, we will keep ourselves away from the temptations and habits of our culture. Let’s look at some practical implications this has for the way we live.

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Big Prayers

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Our faith is so small. It’s as if we are children of a multi-billionaire but never ask for anything more than a pack of gum from our father. God has so much He desires to share with us, but we are too weak-minded to understand and too immature to grasp all that our position in life affords us. We are co-heirs with Jesus to all God has (Romans 8:16-17).

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And yet, most of our prayers are for tiny trinkets and selfish comforts. Why don’t we pray big prayers? Are we afraid God won’t answer in the way we desire, so we shy away? I submit we don’t pray big prayers because our faith is far too small. The more we trust Christ, the bigger our prayers will become.

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