Even If i Walk Alone

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

Mark

What Sin Is

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Each of us wrestles with the problem of sin. To understand how to win this battle, we must first define the terms. What is sin? Sin is any violation of God’s Law (1 John 3:4). We know everyone is guilty of this (Romans 3:23). Holiness is the goal because our lives are supposed to look like Jesus. We can’t look like Jesus when we are continuing to indulge in the same sinful patterns that we always have.

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None of us can live a sinless life; only Jesus was able to accomplish that. But each of our lives should move closer to that ideal every day. God’s law is unchanging, and He has plainly stated what violating His law involves (Mark 12:28-31). When we love anything more than God or when we do not love others as much as we love ourselves, we are sinning. There is no vagueness about what sin is.

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Never Stop Giving

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If you study the life of Jesus, you will see He set the example to never stop giving. Everywhere He went, Jesus was giving something to someone. Sometimes it was as dramatic as giving sight to the blind (John 9:1-7) or cleansing an incurable disease (Matthew 8:2-4), and sometimes it was as simple and subtle as giving peace (John 14:27). In every Bible story in the gospels, you find people needing something from Jesus and Jesus providing it for them.

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Not once do you read about Jesus doing something selfish. Not once do we find Him taking a break from His mission to just chill out and mindlessly relax. Even when He got away by Himself, it was to bask in the presence of His Father (Mark 1:35-38). The life of Jesus was one of service. Are we measuring up?

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We Must Keep His Commands

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Last time (see “Do We Love Him?”), we began to contemplate whether the love we have for Christ is genuine. Because of the importance of this topic, we’re going to continue thinking about it today. Jesus said many would come to Him thinking they know Him, but in fact do not (Matthew 7:22-23). So many are deceived by the “easy believism” and faith without consequences teachings of our day that Hell awaits a multitude of people who think they are in Christ but will find out He never knew them.

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It’s why this subject is of vital importance, one we do well to consider with great soberness. Nothing is more important than your relationship with Jesus. We do not know Him if we do not love Him, and we know to love Him means we must keep His commands (John 14:15).

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Be Thankful

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While we should be thankful every day for the incredible blessings God has given to us, Americans set aside one day a year to express our gratitude as a nation. I recognize not everyone feels thankful today. Illness, job loss, personal tragedy, and general dissatisfaction with life can darken our minds and keep us from recognizing how much we have to be thankful for.

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Wherever you are, simply looking around you reveals much for which you can be thankful. I don’t know your circumstances, but I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t point to someone worse off than they were. So, that’s a start. If it could be worse, then there is something for which you can praise God.

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Whatever We Desire

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Many claim the promise of 1 John 5:14-15, thinking that prayer is the way of getting whatever we desire. A quick reading reveals that it does say whatever we ask, God will give to us. As creatures of our culture, we don’t go any deeper than what makes us feel good. Like everything else in modern Christianity, we’re content to skim the surface of the passage, make it apply to our lives, name it, and claim it.

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This is what decades of false teaching, poor exposition, and outright heresy have done to the thinking of the contemporary church. The good news is, yes, Jesus does promise to give us whatever we ask. The bad news for those seeking an easy avenue to health and wealth is this promise comes with a condition that one can only understand by a careful reading and understanding of this rich and deep promise.

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