Even If i Walk Alone

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

priorities

Do We Love Him?

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I am continually being brought back to the book of 1 John, primarily the second chapter. There is so much there that I’m beginning to think a single lifetime is not long enough to mine all the treasure it contains. One of the great things about this letter is the clarity of the message the Holy Spirit inspired John to write. There are numerous black-and-white statements. There is no nuance, no vagueness, and no wiggle room.

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This book leaves no room for you to hedge your bets. If you believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God that it is, then 1 John is the unequivocal handbook of how we are to live this Christian life. We say we love Jesus, but does our love pass the test? When push comes to shove, do we love Him? Let’s see what John wrote about this.

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In His Presence

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We live our lives in a compartmentalized way. There are compartments holding our work stuff, personal stuff, and God stuff. We further break these compartments down into even smaller ones until we are juggling all these little boxes, unable to keep up and too tired to give any one of them our best effort. In the bustle and progress of modern society, we’ve lost the practice of spending time with God.

in His presence,commitment,discipleship,focus,mission,priorities

Because our attention is so fractured and fragmented, we never seem to have time for our King. Spending time in His presence is at best a dream and is more often than not forgotten entirely. Somewhere between our declaration of His Lordship and our present reality, we’ve lost our love and fascination with Jesus.

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An Obsession with Jesus

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I want to live having an obsession with Jesus. Every time I have a spare moment, I want to fill it with prayer, studying His Word, memorizing scripture, or telling someone about the love, mercy, and grace of Christ. We all live with an obsession for something, so why not have an obsession with Jesus? Deep down, we all have those activities and desires that are constantly calling to us.

commitment,discipleship,lordship,surrender,God's will,Bible study,prayer,priorities,obsession with Jesus

After a long day at work, what is that thing you want to do when you can unplug from your responsibilities and commitments? That thing is probably your obsession, what you would devote your time to if only you could. For most of us, that thing is not Jesus, and for those of us who declare Him Lord, that fact should shame us.

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You Love the World

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Over the past year, I’ve probably referenced (1 John 2:15) more than any other verse. I keep coming back to it because its message is so clear and sobering: “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.” Do you love the world? If so, then you don’t love God. It’s a harsh statement, but impossible to avoid.

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There isn’t any wiggle room in the verse to accommodate how much we love the world, so we can’t rationalize and say we love God more than the things of this world. God has never been one to accept partial love. We cannot serve two masters; we will love the one and hate the other (Matthew 6:24).

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Bad Advice

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There is a lot of bad advice out there. Some of the worst advice we can ever give to someone is to say, “Follow your heart.” This advice is rampant in self-help circles and the culture at large. To someone waffling between options or contemplating a career change, it sounds like wise counsel. But as is often the case, the wisdom of man is foolishness (1 Corinthians 3:18-20). Jesus never told people to follow their hearts. He told them to follow Him (John 8:12; John 12:26).

bad advice,discipleship,salvation,God's Kingdom,lordship,priorities,Kingdom of God

When you follow your heart, you will be listening to your carnal desires. God’s Word says the heart is more deceitful than anything else and incurable (Jeremiah 17:9). When we follow our heart, we are deceiving ourselves. We are playing ourselves for the fool. Only by following Jesus will we ever find the peace, rest, and fulfillment that our hearts desire.

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