Even If i Walk Alone

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

Love

Live in Love

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One of the things I learned from Brother Lawrence’s wonderful little book, “The Practice of the Presence of God”, is that any action which is devoid of love is worth little in the Kingdom of God. Love is the very essence of who God is. When you subtract love from any situation you are left with Godlessness. Where God is, there is love.

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Paul wrote in his letter to the church of Corinth no matter what else we might possess, no matter what skills or talents we have, if we don’t have love, we have nothing (I Corinthians 13). No amount of anything equals anything without love. When we love, we honor God. When we don’t, we dishonor Him. It’s a simple formula. Every follower of Christ yearns to live a life that looks like Jesus. The surest way to accomplish this is to live in love every day.

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Gratitude

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Gratitude is a most overused word while at the same time being a highly underutilized attitude. We live in an age where gratitude is hip and chic. We have gratitude apps and journals, gratitude groups and books filled with gratitude prayers. In a culture where stress is as omnipresent as the air we breathe, many have embraced the concept of gratitude without ever letting it penetrate their hearts. Of course, for Christ-followers, gratitude begins and ends with Jesus Himself.

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When someone gives their life in place of yours, saying you feel grateful may be the understatement of the century. Knowing Jesus, although perfect and without sin, took on all our sin so we might stand blameless before a holy God demands more than our gratitude. It demands our lives.

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The Love of Jesus

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Bruxy Cavey once said, “Humans long for unconditional love, but market a false self to get conditional love. Hence, our true selves are neither known nor loved.” And this is the rub of our lives. We want to be loved but we are afraid to be loved. We want to be known, but we are afraid to show our true selves for fear we will not be liked. It’s why Jesus is so attractive. He accepts us just as we are and does not condemn us (John 3:17).

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He loves us not in spite of what we’ve done, but because of who He is. The truth is you will never find unconditional love on this earth. I think you can get very close with a spouse or a mother’s love for her child, but as humans, we will mess it up. There will always be reminders of how we’ve been hurt or grudges we just can’t seem to completely release.

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Controlling My Reactions

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I struggle with controlling my reactions. When someone says something to offend me, or does something unscrupulous, or even holds an opinion diametrically opposed to my own, my reaction to those people can get me in trouble in a hurry. I want to be loving and given time to formulate my words, I do my best to say things that build people up, not tear them down (Ephesians 4:29).

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But at that moment of a split-second reaction? I don’t fare so well. I know I’m not alone in this as it’s easy to observe the way others react as well. Still, I know controlling my reactions is important to living a life that looks like Jesus.

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His Own Image

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A.W. Tozer once wrote, “Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image.” It seems we spend much of our lives doing this. We speak of our love for Jesus with our mouth, but our lives don’t look much like His. It’s as if we need to define who we mean when we say the name of Jesus.

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Do we mean the beautiful, holy, and blameless Son of God, or do we mean the person we’ve created who happens to look suspiciously like ourselves and the model citizen of our society? God’s Word teaches Jesus is the same today as He has always been and will always be (Hebrews 13:8). If we intend to follow Christ, we must follow Him as He is, not who we are making Him to be.

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