Even If i Walk Alone

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

John

Stop Apologizing for Speaking the Truth

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A popular Christian singer has come under fire for a satirical song he wrote. While the song was amusing, like all good satire, it featured elements of truth. Most notably, the truth it contained was straight from God’s Word. It was basically a song from a father encouraging his daughters to dress modestly. It was sweet and funny, and amazingly controversial.

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When several people began calling his song offensive, the singer took it down and apologized. Besides leaving me scratching my head, I couldn’t help but wonder when Christians will stop apologizing for speaking the truth.

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Do You Love Me More Than These?

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Many of us know the story of Jesus restoring Peter to fellowship with Him. We find the story in John 21:15-19, and much has been written and taught about this passage. The first question Jesus asked Peter was, “Do you love me more than these?” He may have been asking whether Peter loved Him more than the other disciples did, or perhaps if Peter loved Jesus more than he did his fellow disciples.

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Another option is Jesus may have been asking Peter if He loved the nourishment of God over bodily nourishment (they were eating breakfast after a night of hard fishing). While people teach the first two more often, I’d like to focus on the third option. I think “Do you love me more than these?” is a good question for us all to ask every day.

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Live for Christ

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Life is hard for Christians everywhere. This should come as no surprise, as Jesus told us we would have trouble in this world (John 16:33). In many countries, following Jesus will lead to imprisonment, torture, and death. In other countries, Christians are denied jobs, housing, and access to village resources like water. The physical and emotional consequences of professing faith in Christ are extreme. Yet, believers in these countries hold fast to Jesus.

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They disregard the risks for the sake of the prize. Knowing and serving Jesus is worth more than anything to them. In America, our faith rarely causes us any threat to our physical well-being. The emotional consequences of professing your faith are minimal and even laughable compared to what so many are facing. And yet most Christians in America lack the devotion and fervor in their faith of those who suffer so much. Why is that?

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Surrender to God

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God is not calling us to impurity (I Thessalonians 4:7). Nor is He calling us to be fearful (II Timothy 1:7). Why then do we spend so much of our time pursuing sinful things and living in fear? Is it we do not understand our calling or do we just not care? I’m not convinced there is a third option, and neither of the choices is good! This thought alone should drive us to our knees.

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If we are not living for Jesus, for what then are we living? Perhaps a better way to ask this is if Christ isn’t worthy of our lives, who or what is? Why are we not living our lives running away from sin and full of courage? Both are possible if we would only surrender to God.

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Belief

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I heard a definition of belief as being “whatever you put your weight on to move forward.” For an elderly or disabled person that might be a walker or a cane. For someone who is injured, it’s perhaps a crutch. We believe these items will bear our weight and enable us to progress in the way we want to go. If we didn’t believe they could hold our weight—whether that was true or not—we’d be stuck where we are. Too afraid to trust the walking aid, we’d sit paralyzed and depend on the world to come to us.

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It’s the same with our spiritual and mental life. If we don’t believe something, we will not take any action on it. But all of us depend on something to get us out of bed in the morning, make plans, earn money, and live our lives. We all put our weight on someone or something.

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