Even If i Walk Alone

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

Matthew

Holy Living

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Holy living isn’t just a nice idea. It is something God commands us to do. Most of us assume holy living isn’t truly possible. Sure, Jesus did it, but He is the Son of God. We’re fallen and fallible human beings. How can we live up to such a standard? Peter gives us a roadmap for holy living in 1 Peter 1:13-16.

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It all starts in our minds. If we get our thinking right, we’ll find it far easier to live holy lives. You can’t be holy when your mind is obsessed with the things of this world. There is nothing holy on earth, so if we are always thinking of unholy things, how will we ever lead holy lives?

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Everlasting Hope

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With everything that’s going on in the world today, it’s easy to become discouraged, and perhaps feel as if things are becoming a bit hopeless. Spend over sixty seconds watching or listening to the news, and I’ll almost guarantee you will feel worse than before you began tuning in. The powers and media of this world do not exist to encourage you.

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It appears their sole function may be to incite fear and division to control the masses. But, thanks be to God, we don’t have to live under such depression and despair. We have a great hope that the powers of this world can not diminish. God has given us a new birth and everlasting hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (1 Peter 1:3)!

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A New Plan

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For years, the last couple of weeks of the year were a flurry of activity for me. This was goal-setting time, a time to reflect on what I accomplished over the past year and make plans for what I would aspire to do in the year to come. I had one-year plans, three-year plans, five-year plans, and ten-year plans. I laid out everything neatly and precisely. While my goals would evolve, I always had a roadmap for my life.

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I was leaving as little to chance as possible. “The man who fails to plan plans to fail”, or so the saying goes. But, to quote another famous saying, “Man plans, God laughs.” Except I’m not sure God was laughing at all the plans I was making. I think shaking His head might be more accurate.

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The Mary Test

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In a recent message looking at the birth story of Jesus, my pastor posed an interesting question: “Could you pass the Mary test?” When the angel of the Lord appeared to Mary, most scholars think she was between twelve and fifteen years of age. Even in the current era of moral decline, that’s very early for a young woman to consider being pregnant.

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Can you imagine the fear she must have felt at the prospect of being a mother when she was barely in her teens? I don’t think Mary was naïve. I believe at that moment she fully understood the weight of what was being asked of her. And yet, look at the beautiful response of Mary in Luke 1:38. She said, “I am the Lord’s slave. May it be done to me according to your word.”

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Days of Trouble

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What are we to make of this world today? Political unrest, divisiveness, viruses, and no one seems overly happy. What side should we take? What is our duty as Christians? Our duty is the same as it always has been. We are to seek God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). James told us to keep ourselves unentangled with the world (James 1:27). The Apostle John told us we must not love the things of this world (I John 2:15).

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I think one reason we feel such stress and frustration today is that we had gotten overly comfortable with the world. Now that the world is changing, we’re upset because our focus has been on the world instead of Jesus. He never changes. If we had kept our focus on Him, much of what is occurring in the world today would not phase us.

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