Even If i Walk Alone

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

purpose

Your Best Life

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What are the spiritual disciplines you want to have in your life but have not yet implemented? It seems we always think there will be a tomorrow to get started in building a life that looks more like Jesus. As I write this, a new year is approaching. There is something about the end of one year and the beginning of the next that always seems like a great time to make changes in our lives. The tradition of new year’s resolutions dates all the way back to the Babylonians and continues to this day.

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Before we get caught up in this again, we need to remember Jesus taught we should not be building treasures in this life, but storing up riches in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-20). The point of following Jesus is not to build your best life now, but to build your best life after you’ve passed on from this earth.

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Take Up Your Cross

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Jesus said whoever would follow Him had to deny themselves and take up their cross daily (Matthew 16:24). How many of us are doing this on a day to day basis? How many are willing to deny ourselves the comfort, security, and entertainment the world is telling us we deserve? Isn’t it true we want a version of Christianity that doesn’t involve the cross? We like the idea of being a Christian but dislike the sacrifice it requires.

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The notion of a loving God makes us feel comfortable, but His wrath makes us go another way. There is no victory without struggle, but we want our cake and to eat it too. We want all this world has to offer and a little Jesus on the side. This is not the life Jesus called us to live as His followers.

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The Love of Jesus

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Humans long for unconditional love, but too often settle for conditional love. And this is the rub of our lives. We want to be loved but we are afraid to be loved. We want to be known, but we are afraid to show our true selves for fear we will not be liked. It’s why Jesus is so attractive. He accepts us just as we are and does not condemn us (John 3:17).

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He loves us not in spite of what we’ve done, but because of who He is. The truth is you will never find unconditional love on this earth. I think you can get very close with a spouse or a mother’s love for her child, but as humans, we will mess it up. There will always be reminders of how we’ve been hurt or grudges we just can’t seem to completely release.

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His Own Image

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A.W. Tozer once wrote, “Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image.” It seems we spend much of our lives doing this. We speak of our love for Jesus with our mouth, but our lives don’t look much like His. It’s as if we need to define who we mean when we say the name of Jesus.

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Do we mean the beautiful, holy, and blameless Son of God, or do we mean the person we’ve created who happens to look suspiciously like ourselves and the model citizen of our society? God’s Word teaches Jesus is the same today as He has always been and will always be (Hebrews 13:8). If we intend to follow Christ, we must follow Him as He is, not who we are making Him to be.

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Counter-Cultural

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In a world that promotes self-aggrandizement and getting ahead, living life as a humble servant is truly counter-cultural. It is to invite ridicule, derision, and condescending pity from the masses. No one chooses to live this way because it is easy or socially acceptable. We choose it because Jesus told us this is the way to live. By His own example, Jesus showed although He was superior to all, He chose to be a servant to all (John 13:3-17). He told His disciples anyone who sought to get ahead would be sent to the back of the line (Matthew 19:23-30).

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In the upside-down Kingdom of God, the way to get ahead is to stop promoting yourself and begin building up others. For followers of Christ, life is not about becoming the best known or loved. It’s about serving others in such a way they might see Jesus in us and come to know Him for themselves.

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