Even If i Walk Alone

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

surrender

Long-Distance Eyes

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Are you feeling unsteady these days? It’s easy to feel disillusioned by everything you thought you knew when it smacks up against reality. There is so much discontent, fear, hatred, and uncertainty in our world that it takes everything we’ve got to not allow it to swallow us whole. It can be especially disconcerting for those of us who profess to trust Christ to provide everything we need, yet still have to live in a world that is coming apart at the seams.

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How can we hold fast to our faith when evil seems to win victory after victory? It’s easy to lose hope when our focus is on the here and now. Instead of eyes of immediacy, we need long-distance eyes to look beyond our current circumstances and into the eternal life that waits for us.

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How Many Times?

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How many times have you determined to live for Christ like never before? How many times have you promised Him this time you were surrendering for real? If you’re like me, over your lifetime, it’s more times than you can count. As I’ve written before, the ugly truth is we’re as close to God as we want to be. Our commitment is as deep as we desire it to be (James 4:8).

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There is almost nothing we can control in our lives, but how we live for Jesus is something we can control. To our shame, most of us choose to spend our time and energy in pursuits other than studying God’s Word or praying (Matthew 26:41). We can rationalize and make excuses all we want, but when we look in the mirror, each one of us knows the truth.

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A Royal Priesthood

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In Peter’s first epistle, the apostle points out we are a chosen people, set apart to do the work of Christ (1 Peter 2:9). There’s something else tucked into that verse that doesn’t get a lot of attention. Peter states that believers in Christ become part of a royal priesthood. When was the last time you looked in the mirror and reminded yourself that you are a priest?

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If you are like me, the word priest conjures up either a monk from the Middle Ages or a man wearing a black robe in a Catholic church. Neither image is compelling to me. When we look at the role of a Biblical priest, however, and realize we are to carry out similar duties, things get exciting.

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More Than Emotions

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Modern churches place an enormous amount of focus on the emotional experience of being a Christian. Worship teams craft songs and services to evoke an emotional response from those listening. Sermons focus on engaging stories rather than the plain truth of Scripture. And I don’t know about you, but it’s a rare day when my mailbox (physical and virtual) doesn’t find an impassioned plea for help from some ministry or another.

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Social media adds to the play for our emotions by hyping the latest heresy or cause to which the church should be attending. Humans are emotional beings and Christians are no exception. But following Jesus involves more than emotions. Jesus said we must love Him not only with all our heart (emotion) but also with all our strength, mind, and soul (Mark 12:30).

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Every Sin

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Did you ever wonder why there is such little detail given about what Jesus endured on His way to the cross (Matthew 27:27-31; Mark 15:16-20; John 19:1-3)? Hollywood productions spend a lot of time focusing on the abuse being heaped upon Jesus, but the Bible almost glosses over the torturous details. The specifics we do have should be enough to sicken any decent human being. Perhaps the reason the Spirit did not lead the Biblical writers to provide more details is that the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain of enduring the sins of the world (Isaiah 53:4-6).

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If the point of the story was the horrific murder of a good man, then I’m certain we wouldn’t still be talking about it two centuries later. But a man who willingly takes on the sin every human has ever or will ever commit to save those very sinners from eternal damnation? That’s a story worth telling over and over again (1 Peter 2:24).

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