Even If i Walk Alone

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

mission

Living What You Believe

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Francis Chan’s latest book, “You and Me Forever”, will certainly challenge the way you think about your marriage, but perhaps even more importantly it will challenge the way you live your life. Every page seems to hold a new challenge for me. For example, Chan says, “While many of us would say we believe what [the Apostle] Paul believed, our lives do not reflect it. If we believe that billions are dying and headed for God’s judgment, does it make sense to center our lives around anything other than the mission to reach them?… Does the way you are living make sense in the light of the existence of hell? Does your use of time and money make sense in light of the suffering in the world today?” What if we really asked those questions of ourselves?

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The Art of Self-Denial

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There are a few extremes that people hold to on the topic of self-denial. I think A.W. Tozer said it best: “The meaning of self-denial is not an infliction of personal torment nor penance, but it is simply the giving up of the very principle of living for ourselves. It is completely changing the direction of our being and will, so that no longer in any sense do we act with reference to how anything will affect us, but our one thought is how it will affect God or others.” Self-denial then is not principally about doing less for ourselves, but rather doing more for God.

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Act on What You Know

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I love to learn. There is rarely a moment of the day when I don’t have a book in my hand or at least within arm’s reach. We have access to so much information in our world that you could literally spend your entire lifetime gaining valuable knowledge. While that’s great – and even enjoyable to those like me – it never amounts to anything if we don’t apply what we learn and do something useful with all of that information. This is perhaps no more prevalent than in our churches today. We have so many opportunities to learn more about Jesus, but unless we move out of the building and put into action what we have learned, it won’t account for anything when we meet God.

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Planning for Eternity

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Francis Chan said “People accuse me of going overboard in preparing for my first ten million years in eternity. In my opinion, people go overboard in worrying about their last ten years on earth.” If you’re like me and pretty much every other Christ-follower I know, that statement should feel like a punch in the gut. It should hurt because we know he’s right. We live in such a backwards way, putting our own selfish wants and desires ahead of pursuing the mission God has given to us. While we wring our hands over our 401(k)’s and obsess over how we will spend our retirement, we give precious little thought to preparing to spend eternity with God.

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Brave

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As I was writing this morning, I was listening to Nichole Nordeman’s song, “Brave”. I actually was beginning to write on a different topic I had sketched out when the words of the chorus really hit me:

“So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave.”

The song goes on to say “If you believe in me, that changes everything.” Wow. When was the last time you recognized that not only does Jesus love you, but He absolutely, unequivocally, and without hesitation believes in you? He designed you to do the work He created you to do (Ephesians 2:10), and He harbors no doubt you can get it done. It doesn’t matter who hurt you in the past, let you down, held you down, or laughed in your face. The God of the Universe believes in you. Does anything else even matter? [Read more…] about Brave