Even If i Walk Alone

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

John

What Keeps You from Being an Effective Christian?

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What keeps you from being an effective Christian? It’s a question we all ask ourselves at some point in our walk. We want to be more consistent, more bold, and more useful to God in His Kingdom. No one surrenders to the Lordship of Christ and then endeavors to live out their days in mediocrity.

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But mediocrity is where so many believers, once full of fire and zeal for the gospel, live their lives. Why is that? What gets in the way of living a life worthy of our calling as disciples of Jesus (Ephesians 4:1)? If we can identify the problems, it can help us be alert to the tactics of the enemy and not fall for His tricks over and over again (2 Corinthians 2:11).

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Every Careless Word

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Jesus said each of us will have to account for every careless word we speak (Matthew 12:36-37). No small, careless, or flippant word is small, careless or flippant to God. He hears and judges everything that comes out of our mouths. The Lord is holy, consistent, and always intentional (1 Peter 1:15–16).

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He demands the same from us (Matthew 5:48). Jesus didn’t waste words, but used every syllable to point people to the truth about who He was and to the majesty of His Father (John 12:49–50). The beautiful and cutting words of Jesus are life to all who will believe (John 6:63), but the foolish and wicked things we say and do result in our destruction (John 5:28–29).

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A High Bar

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One recent afternoon, I was conversing with a close friend of mine who is not a follower of Christ. I would peg him as agnostic, but he is a thoughtful and intelligent man, so while he disagrees with my faith, we can have civil and rational discussions about it. In the conversation, he surprised me with a comment that was both blunt and telling. He said his problem with Christianity was the forgiveness issue.

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He said he could never sacrifice his own son, and his feeling is that instead of forgiving mankind, God should raise the bar and demand more from us. I thought he was going to say he struggled with forgiveness so couldn’t conceive of God forgiving us, but he went another direction. He considers a high bar a better solution than a merciful gift.

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God Is Our Portion

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In a world that obsesses over always having more, we must always remember that God is our portion (Lamentations 3:24). We don’t need the trinkets and baubles of this life. We don’t need fame, success, or notoriety. All we need is Jesus (John 6:35). Jeremiah knew his very existence was because of God’s faithful love (Lamentations 3:22).

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No matter how desperate the situation or circumstances, the prophet rested in the goodness of God. Many centuries later, the Apostle Paul would echo those same sentiments when he wrote that God would supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19). Faithful men of God throughout history have understood what we have forgotten: we need nothing else in life but God Himself (Psalm 73:25).

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What Will You Do With Jesus

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Having a loved one pass away is a sobering experience. No matter if the relationship was one of loving intimacy or marked by pain and resentment, the loss is real. More than the loss, it is always a stark reminder of how limited our time is (James 4:14; Psalm 90:12). The countdown is on. We are finite creatures with a guaranteed expiration date (Hebrews 9:27).

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The question one must wrestle with in times like these is, what will you do with Jesus in the short time you have remaining? It’s one thing to lament the time wasted in our past, but it is unacceptable to waste the rest of our lives. Jesus didn’t suffer so that we could live a lazy life of ease and indifference (Romans 12:11).

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