Even If i Walk Alone

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

prayer

Nothing is Sacred

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The lack of a sense of reverence and awe in our churches and our lives has been weighing heavily on me in recent days. I touched on this briefly in my last post (see “A Devoted Life”). There is something else troubling me about the way we “do” church in our modern culture. Believers today rarely see prayer as being a sacred approach to the throne of God.

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Almost every church I have attended in the past thirty-five years uses prayer as a transition vehicle from one part of the service to the next. It’s the time when the worship team ascends or exits the platform or simply signals the end of the greeting and the beginning of the service. Prayer has become a vehicle instead of being understood as the great privilege and gift that it is. Even in our church gatherings, it appears nothing is sacred.

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Comfort Zone

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When faced with stressful and overwhelming circumstances, we all tend to pull back and retreat into what is most familiar to us. If what is most familiar and comfortable to us is sin, then we will find ourselves indulging in sinful behaviors every time our world feels like it is collapsing around us. Thus, when we most need God (as if we aren’t in constant need!), we are rebelling against Him. It’s not a good plan.

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A far better plan is to instill healthy spiritual disciplines that will cause us to retreat into habits like prayer and Bible reading when our life begins tilting upside down. Solomon wrote, “As shameful conduct is pleasure for a fool, so wisdom is for a man of understanding” (Proverbs 10:23). We need to be so obsessed with God and His Word that He becomes our comfort zone.

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This New Year

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As this year draws to a close, we look back and think of what occurred, what we accomplished, and what might have been. The end of a year brings a mix of thoughts of satisfaction, relief, achievement, sorrow, pain, and regret. There’s something about completing a chapter in one’s life that invokes nostalgia, retrospection, and hope in all of us. A brand new year promises a clean slate for us.

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Goal setting and resolutions run rampant, filling even the weakest of us with resolve and willpower for at least a day or two. Humans are a predictable but interesting lot. This new year, let’s focus less on ourselves and more on what matters. Losing weight, buying a new house, and finding a better job are worthwhile pursuits, but none of them will matter if we die tomorrow. The only thing that matters is what we do for Jesus.

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Repent

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As John the Baptist began preaching, he had a very simple message: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). Jesus began His public ministry with the same message: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). This message rings as true and relevant today.

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In a world where everyone believes they have their truth and morals have become a relic of the past, the need to repent has never been greater. God sets the rules for living because He created everything that lives. He is the author and judge, and our only role is to obey Him. Instead, we’ve spent millennia thumbing our noses at the One who loves us most.

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Finding Rest

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Perhaps the scarcest commodity in the world today is rest. Do you agree? If you asked the typical person how they were doing twenty years ago, they would unthinkingly reply, “Fine.” Ask anyone today, and the most common response is, “Busy.”. Research shows people are working fewer hours and taking more time off than ever, so how can everyone be so busy? I suggest it’s a matter of priorities. There are more options and demands for our time than at any other point in history.

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Not wanting to miss out on anything, we cram more into our schedules. Unable to cope with the insanity in the number of choices available, we become paralyzed with indecision, leading to us falling behind in everything. Jesus promised His followers rest, so there has to be a better way, right? I believe there is. I believe finding rest is not only possible but essential to our discipleship.

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