Even If i Walk Alone

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

Luke

Is It What You Expected?

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How long have you been a Christian? No matter your answer, I have a question for you: “Is it what you expected?” When you came to acknowledge Christ as your Lord and Savior, what did you imagine would be the result? Increasingly, I see Christians encouraging someone down on their luck by pulling random verses out of context and assuring those people that God has big plans for them if they will only trust in Jesus.

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In one sense, those well-wishers are correct. God has big plans for everyone who calls on His name. He plans to give them eternal life and bring them into His presence forever. There couldn’t be a bigger plan. But I know this isn’t what these people have in mind. Too many so-called Christians today have believed the lie that believing in Jesus is the way to success, health, and wealth in this life now.

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It’s Not Easy

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Amidst all the madness swirling around this world today, two things genuinely break my heart. The first is when I pray for the salvation of my friends, colleagues, and family and face the reality of how many of them, people I love and care for, are going to Hell. While I know it is not my responsibility or even ability to save them, the burden still weighs heavily when I ponder how many opportunities I have let slip by to help them understand the Gospel.

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The second thing that breaks my heart is the number of people in churches around the world who think they are Christians but are not truly saved. It’s not easy to surrender everything to Jesus, but it pales in comparison to how difficult it will be to spend eternity without Him.

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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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The Remnant of God

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The beauty of God’s plan is He promises there will always be a remnant who will remain faithful to Him (Ezekiel 6:8-10). No matter how dark the world becomes or how dire the circumstances that emerge, the Church of Christ will never be defeated (Matthew 16:18). The light that has come into the world through Jesus will never be extinguished (John 8:12). My question is, “How big will that remnant be in our generation?”

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The more I learn and the closer I draw to Christ, the more concerned I become about the multitudes who profess Jesus with their lips but deny him with their lives. I see no evidence that everyone who calls themselves a Christian is part of the remnant of God. There are simply far too many walking down the path of “doing church” and “being Christian” than could ever squeeze through the narrow gate (Matthew 7:13-14).

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