Even If i Walk Alone

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

priorities

A Foundation of Love

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What is it you really want out of life, what do you hope to accomplish?  In the end, what will it all matter?  I have a lot of dreams and goals, but none of them will count for anything if I don’t get one thing right; that one thing being how well I reflect the love of Christ.

Putting everything else aside for now, let’s focus on that one thing.  What do we need to do today to best reflect the love of God?  Have we become too busy, so much so that we don’t take the time each day to just stop and communicate with Jesus?  Many people set aside time at the beginning of each day to do this, and that’s great.  There’s nothing magical about what time you do it, the important thing is that you do indeed take the time.  You can choose morning, afternoon or evening as long as you don’t let anything get in the way of this time with Christ.

What inevitably tends to happen is that instead of scheduling a set time to be alone and focused on God, we try and squeeze this time amongst the other activities of our day.  This never works!  Adding God to your life will always result in a low impact and uncommitted walk.  We can’t add God to our life, He must be our life.  If there is room for anything else we can add that on, but life must start and find its centrality in Christ.

This one change, this one way of changing how we do life will prove revolutionary.  Let nothing get in the way of your time with God.  Once you have established the time, don’t let outside distractions cheapen it.  Talk to God, sit quietly in His presence, listen and dream with Him.  This may take some getting used to, but I assure you it is more than worth the effort.

Starting with God as the foundation allows us to build up other areas of our lives.  Should we face trial or failure, even if we lose everything, our foundation will remain.  Hard times never seem as bad when we realize we are defined by our foundation, not by anything else.  We are His and He is ours.  Before attempting any other drastic changes in your life, make certain your foundation is solidly set.  With Christ as our foundation, we cannot but help but pour out His love on those around us.  With His love as our foundation, it will simply permeate our entire being.  True love cannot be shaken and will never be defeated.  Set your foundation in His love, and then use that strength to encourage others to do the same.  Watch your life change as everything you do flows from a basis of love.  Reflect Him in everything you do.

Frustrated or Restless?

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I’m tired of watching life happen to me.  The best laid plans seem to always go astray.  The many desires I have to accomplish more and more crowd out any peace that should be in my head.  Where is the peace of Christ?  Why this frustration and restlessness?

Have you been there?  Welcome to life in the Western world.  Convenience is at our fingertips, achievement is ours to obtain.  We are free to pursue any and everything this world has to offer.  Stop for a moment and simply ask, “At what cost?”  What have we lost in our hurried, results-oriented culture?  Look around your neighborhood; observe the affluence regardless of income.  What have we become?

As Christians we are called to live differently, we are called to a life of humility and love.  We are called to peace and selflessness.  Does your life reflect these attributes?  I know I have a long way to go when measured against these core principles.  We are supposed to be a peculiar folk, but instead we have learned to blend right in.  We have become Americans (if you’re a U.S. reader, if not fill in your own nationality) at the cost of being Christians.  We have lost our first love, in fact I believe we’re in danger of losing love altogether.

Christianity was never meant to be proper people attending large brick buildings where they are entertained for an hour or two each week before going back into the day to day drudgery of the “real world”.   We are to be a people in community with one another every day, and every day we are to be about serving the needs of those in our cities and our world.  When was the last time we left our church buildings and immediately began planning how we were going to love and care for the sick, homeless, widowed and orphaned?  More likely we start planning the grocery list or what our jobs will require of us over the upcoming week or even worse, what football game we will watch that afternoon.  Christianity as a whole has become hypocritical and pharisaical.  I cringe at the thought of what Christ would say of my life in particular and the body of the Western church as a whole.  We have become complacent, self-centered and blinded to those around us.

So how do we stop reacting to what comes at us in life and instead start dictating what our life will look like?  How do we quell the restlessness in our souls?  We get back to being the church Christ called us to be.  We return to our first love, Christ, by imparting His love to everyone we meet.  It is virtually impossible to find yourself frustrated with life when you are walking in step with Christ, doing the things he has commanded us to do.  Are you frustrated?  Serve Christ by loving others.  Does life keep slamming into you?  Take a break and find someone to love.  Do you want to impact the world?  Look like Jesus and love your neighbor, serve their needs.  Are you sensing a theme?  Life is easy, we’ve made it difficult.  Love Christ, love others.  Nothing else matters.

Are You On Mission?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about goals lately, and how to make certain we accomplish all we can for Christ during our time here on earth.  So many things beg for our time and attention that it is all too easy to become distracted and pulled off mission.  Harder still to remain focused if we have never defined our purpose and goals.  I encourage everyone to develop a mission statement as well as some life goals for themselves.

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What Are You Waiting For?

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I read another great Denis Waitley quote this week: “We spend too much energy worrying about the things we want to do but can’t, instead of concentrating on doing things we can do but don’t.”  Are you so busy waiting to do something huge for Christ that you miss the little things you could be doing each day?  Do you get frustrated when looking at the accomplishments of other Christians as compared to how you perceive your own effectiveness?  It’s time we reevaluate our purpose and start seizing the opportunities that are all around us.

Fretting over the things we want to do but can’t wastes time in two ways.  First, any time spent worrying is of absolutely no avail.  Nothing about a situation changes when we worry; the only change that may occur is a negative change in your health.  Worrying causes stress, and stress is a silent destroyer of health.  Second, the time we spend thinking of those things we can’t do steals time from those things we could and should be doing.  The energy given to worrying about things we can’t do simply masks the common malady of procrastination.  We have no idea how much time we have left on this earth, but I guarantee you that none of us has enough time to procrastinate for even a moment.  Time is ticking away from each of us and we have limited time to accomplish all that we can.

There are so many things we could be doing but we don’t.  Why?  One reason is a fear of failure.  We know we are capable of doing something, but what if we fail?  What if someone laughs at us?  Do we really want to face the One we call Lord and tell Him we would have done so much more for Him but we were afraid someone would laugh at us?  One way to overcome the fear of doing something is by imagining yourself before God when He asks what you did for Him.  Will we be able to recite a list of actions we took?  Will we be able to tell Him of how we stared down our reluctance, abandoned our fear of embarrassment and just went for it?  How much better would this feel than having to hang our heads in shame over caring more about what someone else thought than what Christ would think?

Another reason we don’t seize every opportunity is because we are afraid we actually might succeed.  If we are successful, that is going to mean more responsibility, more time out of our schedule, more weight on our shoulders.  God will not give us more than we are able to handle, and He will help us carry any responsibility.  In fact, He’ll make what we’re carrying seem light as a feather.  The joy we feel from doing things for Christ will far outlast any burdens we may have to bear.

What are you not doing that you should be doing?  What are you afraid of?  Stop wasting time thinking of what you want to be doing and instead refocus that energy into things you can be doing.  Make a list of three things you can do for Christ this week… write it down!  Additionally, write down something you’ve not done simply because of your fear.  Now write down one step you will take this week to begin facing that fear, one step that will move you toward accomplishing that task.  When we focus our energy on those things we can be doing, we will find less and less time available to worry about those things we can’t.

Commitment

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Have you ever thought about the question, “How committed are you”?  We want to devote ourselves to a task, a goal, a dream and ultimately to serving Christ.  We say we are committed to doing so.  How do we measure that commitment?  How do we move it from an “it would be nice to be this way” to a “this is who I am”?

I submit that commitment is much like integrity; there are no degrees of either.  Just as a person either has integrity or doesn’t, a person is either committed or they aren’t; you can’t be partially committed.  To commit to something is to do it; to be committed to a cause is to throw your all into it.  You can’t be committed to run ten miles and quit at five.  That’s not commitment!  Marriage is a commitment.  For those who are married, what if we treated that relationship with the same “amount” of commitment that we give to other areas of our lives?  You see there’s no such thing as an “amount” of commitment.  Committing to something is to give your all, not your part.  It is closely intertwined with integrity in that what you say you will do, you do.

Now certainly if we commit to something that later proves to be a mistake, we should drop that commitment.  So if commitment means to always see it through, but it’s okay to abandon commitment when we’ve made a mistake, how do we know when it’s okay to not follow through?  That decision has to be guided by our overarching value system.  Does it align with the Kingdom mission of Christ, or worse yet, does it oppose that mission?  Let that always be your guiding principle.  Now the best idea would be to check your value system before ever making a commitment.  A commitment is a solemn vow; Jesus said to let our “yes be yes”.  Again this is the integrity issue.  If we are going to commit to something, we should be fully prepared and willing to see that commitment through to completion.  This principle will allow us to live a life according to the principles taught by Jesus.

How is your commitment to Christ?  Are you committed to following Him or are you just providing lip service?  If we claim to be committed and do not follow Him with all that we are, then we are liars and lack integrity.  To be seen as a liar and to lack integrity in our day to day lives is bad enough, but is that how we present ourselves to our Lord?  There is no such thing as being partially committed to Christ.  If we are to be committed we must throw ourselves into walking in His ways, and do so with true reckless abandon.  If we are committed to Christ, we must love everyone at all times; we must actively seek to help others, to show kindness in everything we do.  Failing does not disqualify our commitment; we often fail as we endeavor to fulfill commitments.  With each failure, we must quickly repent, dust ourselves off, get up and be about our committed purpose again.

Commit today to follow Christ.  Live your commitment by loving others, caring for their needs and giving all you have to pursue the mission of the Kingdom.  There is no half-way, no partial commitment if you should choose to follow Christ.  He demands it all; are we ready to commit to that demand?