Even If i Walk Alone

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

John

Pursuing Discipleship

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A helpful question to ask yourself when pursuing discipleship is, “Am I a better disciple with or without this in my life?” The “this” could be any activity which you pursue. Your “this” might be the name of an individual or group of individuals. It’s a question we should ask ourselves throughout the day until it becomes second nature.

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Until we spend our time doing things that make us better disciples, things that make us look more like Jesus, we will never become the person He intends for us to be. The problem is, while many of us might ask this question of ourselves, few of us will do the hard work of changing our behavior to be consistent with the answer to the question.

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A Wartime Mindset

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Followers of Jesus should live with a wartime mindset, but most of us are strolling through life as if we are in the greatest peace-time in history. We take spiritual things lightly and give significant weight to the physical world. It’s the most short-sighted strategy we could adopt, and the devil continues to deceive us into believing we are being smart. One thing I know for certain is no matter what comes out of the mouth of Satan, it will be a lie (John 8:44). So whatever he puts in our mind, we should do the opposite. Immediately.

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We are not at peace. We are at war. Your soul, the soul of your family, and the souls of your friends are under attack. Satan wants to distract you from the truth, so he distorts it. The longer we believe we’re not living in a war zone, the harder it becomes to break out of the stupor and see the battle raging around us.

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Love Like Jesus

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Nothing that comes out of Washington or our local government changes our mission. We are still to go into the world sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18-20). We are still to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:36-38). And we are still to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). Whatever else may happen around us, His call remains unchanged. It’s our north star, our constant in a sea of change.

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We do ourselves a great disservice when we allow the cares of this world to drown out the voice of God (Mark 4:18-19). Our purpose here is not to perpetuate the philosophy of any government or to trumpet the social cause of the day. Our purpose is to look like Jesus, live like Jesus, and love like Jesus.

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What do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

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When you are young, people often ask you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Our answers were always filled with the exuberant and innocent dreams of youth. My earliest recollection of answering that question was that I wanted to be Spiderman. That didn’t pan out and I still haven’t had any encounters with a radioactive spider, so like many passing fancies of youth, it’s probably time to let that dream go.

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But the question of “What do you want to be when you grow up” is a good one for all would-be disciples of Jesus. And it can only have one answer: “I want to be just like Jesus.” While my childhood dream of being Spiderman had no basis on reality, the aim of living like Jesus is both an attainable and worthwhile pursuit.

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Fight Back

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As countries around the world face great upheaval, we must remember the weapons of our warfare look nothing like those of the world (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). Where I live, righteous indignation often results in violence begetting violence. Christians are angry and want to fight back against the forces coming against them. It’s understandable and natural. But it is natural only in the context of the old self we put away when we gave our lives to Jesus (Ephesians 4:22-23).

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Our new nature looks like Jesus (Ephesians 4:24), so we now must fight back in the way He modeled for us. We fight back by immersing ourselves in the Word of God, praying for our enemies, and loving everyone as ourselves. It all seems counter-intuitive, but this is what Jesus taught us to do.

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