Even If i Walk Alone

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

James

Fraud

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Woman in a mask

My father used to have a sign on his desk that read, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” If you are a Western Christian like myself, there’s a good chance the answer to that question would be ‘no’. In fact, from what I have seen and read, a large number of those professing to believe in Jesus are actually frauds. We claim to follow the teachings of Christ, but in practice we do anything but that. Jesus had strong words for the hypocrites of His day (Matthew 7:4-5; Matthew 15:5-9; Matthew 23:13-15); do you think His position has softened over the years?

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The Word of God

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diverging

I heard David Platt ask an interesting question recently. The question was, “Does the Word stop with you or spread through you?” In other words, when you listen to a sermon, read the Bible, or gain spiritual insight from a song, a book or other means, what do you do with what you learn? Do you keep it to yourself and internalize the lesson? Or do you receive what you have learned in order to teach it to someone else? It’s great to grow closer to God and use what we learn to more closely model our lives after His, but until we are sharing our knowledge with others, we are falling short of the things He told us to do.

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God’s Vision for Your Life

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Man looking towards Heaven

God has a vision for your life. He created you with a unique blend of talents and passions. Have you yet caught this vision? Do you understand what you are to do with your life? I think we often make the mistake of trying to determine what big thing we can do, something that will have an enormous impact. Instead we should be aware of the little opportunities that surround us every day. No one needs to be famous to make a difference for the Kingdom of God. You don’t need to be in the professional ministry. I chose not to say “full time ministry”, because all followers of Christ are in full time ministry, not just those who get paid for it. Understand that we should always be doing the work of Jesus.

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Pursuing Holiness

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Two roads diverging

As you go throughout your days, are you pursuing a life of holiness? Are you consciously striving to be the person God created you to be, a person who is consumed by the love of Jesus? This isn’t a new concept, but it has been brought to my mind in fresh ways through recent teachings by Bill Hybels and David Platt. Not only has God placed a unique combination of passions and skills in each of us in order that we might do the work He created us to do, but He has also charged us to conduct ourselves in a manner that is pleasing to Him (Philippians 1:27).

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Should Christians Attend Church? (Part II)

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Fancy Church

To sum up part 1 of this post from last week (See “Should Christians Attend Church? Part I”), I do not believe attending a large building once a week is mandatory for followers of Christ. We as a body are the church, not any building, and I find that small groups and house churches more closely resemble the New Testament church than do the monolithic structures we commonly refer to as the Western “church”. From a financial standpoint then, if the church then is not a particular congregation but rather the body at large, what becomes of the tithe?

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