Even If i Walk Alone

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

priorities

Your Christmas Focus

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Where is your focus this Christmas season? As I write this, “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” are now behind us and now the shopping season is in full swing. Seasonal songs flood the radio airwaves and every store you enter. Decorations hang down light poles, over doorposts, and stretch as far as the eye can see. Families and friends arrange to gather and employees take extended time away from work to prepare for and celebrate the holiday.

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With all the hustle and bustle it can be all too easy to forget the reason we actually celebrate Christmas in the first place. Christians all know the reason, but few give it much space in their hearts, let alone allow it to alter the way they live.
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Holiness over Happiness

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A vile disease has wormed its way into the hearts and minds of modern Christianity.  The teaching of “God wants you to be happy” is preached from pulpits across the nation regardless of the fact this principle is not found in Scripture. I don’t find anywhere where God said to “Be happy because I am happy”.  What I do find He says is to “Be holy because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16) There is a vast difference between holiness and what we equate with happiness.

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Before you get too depressed, know this: there is no joy like being obedient and faithful to Jesus Christ. Happiness is a fleeting emotion, counts for nothing, and fades as quickly as it came. Holiness lasts forever, counts for everything in the eyes of God, and is hard to shake once you’ve tasted its beauty.
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Syrian Refugees

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I don’t typically write about current event topics. There are enough voices out there clamoring for your ear. I also avoid them so as not to be pigeonholed as leaning in one political direction or another. That’s so useless to me. All I care about is demonstrating the love of Christ to others and living in a way that allows people to see Him through me. I couldn’t care less about much else.

Syrian refugees,sheep and goats,Matthew 25:31-46discipleship,love,love your neighbor,shelter the homeless,care for the poor,care for the sick

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This blog has always been, and always will be, focused on teaching and encouraging fellow disciples to authentically live out their faith. So I had mixed feelings when a friend suggested I write about the plight of Syrian refugees. It’s a hot political topic with opinions raging for and against whether or not they should be allowed into the Country in which I live. But let’s strip away the politics and look at this through the eyes of Jesus.
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Focusing On Things That Matter

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I read an awesome prayer recently. It was simply, “Deliver me today from the trifling things and help me to spend every minute of the day on ‘the things that matter.’” I need to pray that every day. My life is often filled with “trifling things”. I am guilty of rejecting the beautiful, matchless gifts of God in lieu of the cheap and fading things of this world.

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It’s crazy when you step back and look at how much we’re giving up and how little we are actually getting. Everything we achieve or acquire in this life will pass away. It won’t last. In the end, it will all be useless; wasted time and wasted trinkets to litter the memories of a possibly wasted life.

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End Slavery

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According to International Justice Mission, there are 36 million slaves in the world today. That is equivalent to the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and Tokyo. To people everywhere, but especially to followers of Christ, this is simply unacceptable. The Bible clearly states one of the things we can do to honor God is to end slavery (Isaiah 58:6).

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It is unconscionable to me the Church can find the resolve to rally against gay marriage and to debate Creationism vs. Evolution, but can care so little about slavery. We are quick to defend the causes which have no direct victims but fall silent to the plight of 36 million individuals relegated to a life of abuse, anguish, captivity, and an utter loss of dignity.
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