Even If i Walk Alone

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

John

Choosing Divine Love

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One of my favorite Bible verses is 1 John 2:15. It is a beautiful verse with a sobering warning. Put simply, we cannot say we love God if we love the things of this world. Every day, this verse is at the forefront of my mind. It is the lens through which I see the world. To my regret, I still fail far too often to heed the warning. I have yet to learn to keep from loving the things of this world.

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One upside of how evil this world is becoming is that it is becoming far more difficult to love anything about it! Still, the battle goes on every day in the life of every follower of Jesus. There is no excuse for embracing the things of this world for those of us who claim Jesus as Lord. The choice could not be more clear: we either love Jesus or we love the things of this world.

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Sober-Minded and Alert

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As we discussed in Prepare for Persecution, the first step in preparing for persecution, according to 1 Peter 5:8-9, is to be sober-minded and alert. This probably conjures up some ideas in your mind, but what are some practical things we can do to cultivate this in our lives? Remaining vigilant is a discipline that needs to be honed and strengthened over time.

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We don’t wake up one day and suddenly live with greater focus and attention. The first thing we need to do is understand the signs of this age and recognize the urgency of these times in which we find ourselves. Most of us have never had to worry about persecution and cannot grasp the reality or inevitability of it. Let me state it plainly. Persecution is coming; Jesus promises it will (John 16:33).

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Prepare for Persecution

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What is certain, but not being preached from many pulpits today, is that persecution is coming. Why pastors are not preparing their flocks for the coming trouble is beyond me. I listen to sermons from various churches constantly as I seek to learn and understand more about God and His Word. What I’m not hearing from most pulpits (thankfully, there are a few exceptions) is an urgency to repent and prepare for what is coming.

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There is no talk of how to prepare for persecution, and resources on the topic seem scarce. But Jesus told us the world will persecute us because of His name (John 15:20-21; Matthew 24:9). Because most of us live in places where persecution has not been a reality in our lives, we’ve become lazy, blind to the signs of this age (Matthew 24:3-31), and so comfortable in this world that we are ill-prepared for the coming persecution.

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Getting Lazy

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Yet we all know we can get lazy in our eating, exercise, and work habits. More devastating than any of those areas, though, is when we find ourselves getting lazy spiritually. It does us no good to be disciplined in physical matters if we’re not going to apply the same or greater discipline to eternal things.

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I’m not only referring to the well-known spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible study, but also the less obvious areas, like our relationships with family and friends, personal integrity, and service to others. It doesn’t take much to knock us off our game in these areas, which hinders our witness to the world, and disrupts our relationship with the Lord.

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Draw Closer to Jesus

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It’s been fifty years since I accepted the gift of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You would think I’d have the Christian walk figured out by now. Sadly, you would be wrong. I’m still learning, failing, and growing. Our finite minds will never comprehend all there is to know about God, and our fallen humanity can never walk in perfection with Him.

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But we must never cease striving to live our lives in obedience and surrender to Him. His Word compels us to do so, and our love for Him keeps us ever-yearning to serve Him better and please Him more. Until that glorious day when He calls us home to be with Him, the best we can do is to draw closer to Jesus every day we live.

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