Even If i Walk Alone

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

mission

Move the Needle

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One of the key concepts I want to establish through the blog this year is mediocrity is not acceptable in the Kingdom of God. Jesus, the perfect Creator of all the beauty you see in this world didn’t do a mediocre job of anything. None of His creation even hints at mediocrity. Even now He continues to make all things new. He continues to create. How many times have you looked at a sunset you felt certain was more beautiful than any you had seen before?

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Jesus continues to create beauty even in a dark and evil world. He continues to bring His best to every day we live. Do we not owe Him the same effort with our own lives? After all, we belong to Him. Mediocre simply can’t be good enough. We’ve got to strive to be better in ways that will bring Him glory. We can’t sit idling; we’ve got to move the needle in our commitment to God.

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Jesus Has Come

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We just completed a season of Advent. The word advent simply means “coming.” More specifically in Christian circles it means the coming of Christ. We celebrate Advent at Christmas time in memory of Christ coming to earth as a baby who would grow up to die for our sins. Now this season has passed, we look forward to a new season of advent.This is the second advent, the second coming of Jesus.

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With Christmas in our rear view mirror, we now turn our focus for the next year to building His Kingdom on earth in preparation for His return. This is the future advent. While we celebrate the Advent of His birth in memory of what He did, we celebrate the Advent of His coming again in honor and praise for what He has yet to do.

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What Will You Do with Christmas?

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I don’t know when you are reading this, but as I write it, Christmas is less than a week away. That means it’s somewhat obligatory I write a Christmas themed post. I know this because every sermon I’ve listened to for the past month (and I listen to a lot of sermons; call it a job hazard!) have all been around the Christmas story. Therefore, since I am a Christian writer, I apparently need to write about Christmas. But here’s the problem: regular readers of this blog already know all about the Christmas story.

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You’ve heard the same messages I have over the years. If we’re honest, it is rare we hear something in a new way this time of year. So instead of focusing on the Christmas story and trying to find some new twist to illuminate a story that cannot possibly be improved, I’m going to ask you a simple question: What will you do with Christmas?

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Halfhearted or Lukewarm

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Vince Antonucci writes in his excellent book, “Renegade”, that “God isn’t looking for the halfhearted or lukewarm… Anywhere we look in the Bible, we see that we are meant to be all-in when it comes to following Jesus. We know that, and we want to make that commitment. So we say yes, but it’s a yes with lots of buts.” As A.W. Tozer put it, “we want the crown but not the cross.” We want to follow Jesus on our terms; but that’s not a choice we get to make.

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Antonucci puts it this way: “We get to choose whether we want to follow Jesus, but we don’t get to choose what it looks like to follow Jesus.” And that’s where many turn away. They want the nice Jesus, the safe Jesus, the Jesus who will fix all their problems and take them to Heaven. You can’t just have some of Jesus. You commit to all of Him or you leave Him to the side.

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Finishing Well

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We humans ascribe an inordinate amount of focus and power to dates. We put off big life changes until a Monday so as to have a “fresh start”. We set goals and resolutions at the beginning of the year almost exclusively.  Perhaps worst of all, when a week, month, or year is coming to a close, we tend to put it in neutral and just coast until the next big marker of time.  December is a month rife with coasting. Most are so caught up in gift-giving and home decorating that little time is left for anything else.

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It becomes easy to lose focus and take your eyes off the things that really matter. Unfortunately, our spiritual life and goals tend to follow the same fate. Instead of finishing well the work God gave us to do this year, there is a tendency to end with a whimper instead of a bang.

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