Even If i Walk Alone

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

priorities

Psalm 119

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When I was younger and reading through the Bible, I used to dread when I came to Psalm 119. It’s the longest chapter in the Bible, and I still remember groaning when it came up for that days reading. I’ve always had a checklist personality, so when something takes a bit longer to cross off my list, I quickly grow impatient. As I’ve grown to love God and His Word more, I have come to appreciate Psalm 119 to the point it is now one of my favorite chapters, and I get excited when I turn to it.

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There is so much packed into this single chapter. Almost every verse holds a complete and self-contained nugget of praise, worship, wisdom, or instruction. I think you could read Psalm 119 every day for the rest of your life and never plumb its depths.

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What Has Your Attention?

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It is not uncommon for church services in Haiti to last 4-6 hours. Contrast this with the typical Western church service which is typically tightly scripted to last for an hour or an hour and 15 minutes. Anything beyond this time and people begin to bristle. We have other things to do after all. When Pastor Kyle Idleman visited Haiti, he inquired of a local pastor as to how he was able to keep the attention of his congregation for so long.

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The pastor replied simply the people in Haiti had nothing else to do. While he said this with laughter, I believe he hit on an incredibly simple, but important, truth. Believers in Haiti spend extended time worshipping God because they have nothing else in their lives competing for the attention they give to God.

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Begin Your Day

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I believe the way you begin your day significantly impacts how the day will go. It cannot be overemphasized how much your first choices each day impact how the rest of it plays out. Our first thoughts and actions will decide how we treat our spouse, our family, our friends, and our co-workers. They will determine whether we will put God first, and they will dictate whether we honor God by taking care of our own well-being.

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As people who aspire to live their lives wholly devoted to Christ, this means beginning each day talking with Him. We need our marching orders and to attune our hearts to His. No one begins a long journey without first consulting a map or their GPS. We need direction, and our roadmap is found in Jesus Christ.

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Faithful Not Famous

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We live in a world obsessed with self. I know it has always been this way, but the problem is perhaps more obvious today than ever. Not only is society continuing to encourage us to be self-centered, but we now have tools with which to promote ourselves twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Social media has exploded over the last few years and is now an integral part of the lives of many.

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Younger people seem especially susceptible to this, but no one is immune to the siren call of popularity and self-aggrandizement. This should be particularly distressing to those of us seeking to follow Christ. We understand life is all about Jesus, not ourselves. As I heard Craig Groeschel say recently, “We are called to be faithful, not famous”.

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Pruning

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It’s easy to fall into the trap of adding more and more into our lives. These can be good things like spiritual disciplines or they can be dangerous things inflicted upon us by societal pressures. Either way, we are a people who seem to crave cramming more and more into our lives each day. When we look at the life of Jesus, the One after whom we should be modeling our own life, we don’t see Him doing this.

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Jesus lived simply, on purpose, and on mission. Perhaps the better question to ask is not what else can we add into our lives, but what is it we can remove to make Jesus our overriding priority? What is one thing we can cut out of our lives today we know is not bringing honor to our Lord?

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