Even If i Walk Alone

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

Job

Our Thoughts

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Most of us are pretty good at presenting a Christian face to the world. Underneath the façade, though, our thoughts often reveal a different side to our character. Indeed, getting our thought life under control is far more difficult than mastering our outward habits. John Macarthur once wrote, “The sins of our thought life are soul-coloring sins, character-damaging sins.”

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What we think about shapes who we become. We can never be joyful followers of Christ if deceit, lust, and conceit cloud our thoughts. The direction of our lives will be determined by what we think about most. A mind saturated by Jesus will yield a life devoted to Him. As appealing as that sounds, the opposite is also true. When our thoughts are on things other than God, the result will be a life that is frustrated, defeated, and ultimately wasted.

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Joy in Contentment

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There is immense joy in contentment. The trouble is, contentment can be hard to come by. Few people I’ve met seem content. When you ask how they are, rarely do you get a boisterous, even joyful, response. In fact, the typical “I’m fine” and “good” responses border on depressing and always leave me questioning their sincerity. Maybe I’m cynical because I know my own responses are typically half-hearted at best.

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Let’s be honest; the response of a disciple should never be anything less than an enthusiastic “fantastic”. Regardless of what’s happening in this current life, we have the promise of something far greater down the road. We can be presently miserable, but must never lose sight of how amazingly blessed and fortunate we are.

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Prepared to Die

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As someone who has longed to meet Jesus for a long time now, I was particularly struck by a quote I read from one of the early church fathers named Irenaeus. He said, “The business of the Christian is nothing else than to be ever preparing for death”.  The statement also reminded me of Francis Chan’s latest book, “You and Me Forever”, in which he espouses the primary role of the husband is to make certain his wife is well prepared for Heaven.

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Our entire lives should be spent preparing ourselves and others to meet Christ. This profoundly impacts the decisions we make and activities we engage in every day of our lives.
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The Currency of Time

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time management,finite beings,discipleship,Job,live every moment,carpe diem,seize every moment,eternal life,reward

A great many of us spend the majority of our lives pursuing money. It’s not that we necessarily are ruled by it (though many are), but it is accepted as one of the basic needs of life. We need money to purchase the things we need to survive. Life is so much more than money and the endless pursuit of it can easily cause you to trust it, rather than God, to provide for your needs. There is a higher currency with which we should be far more obsessed. That is the currency of time. Time is far more finite, and infinitely more valuable, than money. How we spend our time reveals where our true treasure lies.

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Deliverance

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faith,perseverance,patience of Job,facing trials,tribulation

Have you ever had periods in your life where you felt like you could relate to Job? There are seasons in all of our journeys where, to the best of our knowledge we are following well, yet everything seems to be crumbling around us. Maybe a job loss or financial difficulty will arrive. Perhaps we will lose someone close to us or have an internal battle threaten to rage out of control. We are doing the things God told us to do but still our lives seem to be spiraling downward and picking up speed. These are the times of character refinement, and it is these moments that determine our true loyalty. Will we give up because it is too hard? Or will we say with Job, “The Lord gives and He takes away… I will never curse my friend” (Job 1:21-22; Job 2:9-10)?

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