Even If i Walk Alone

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

surrender

Orienting Our Lives Around Jesus

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Not long ago, I wrote an article on orienting your entire life around Christ. I want to develop that idea further because I’m not there yet and feel Jesus isn’t through working on me in this area. There was a time when people would spend their entire days working their farms, fields, and flocks. Survival was synonymous with life. Leisure time was a luxury rarely found. And yet, when Sunday came around, almost everyone was in church.

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Prayers were said around the table and before bed at night. Scripture was read by the fire before turning in. The whole of life was oriented around work and God. It harkens back to the first week of creation, when God worked six days and rested on the seventh to enjoy the work of His hands (Genesis 2:1-3). It’s almost like He knew what He was doing and defining a pattern for the way His people should live. Imagine that.

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We Are Sick

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Richard Foster once wrote, “Conforming to a sick society is to be sick”. Looking around the Church today, I have to say we are sick. Every day I read of another pastor or church caving to societal pressure. We are conforming to the world instead of conforming to the likeness of God’s Son. We are conforming to the very world the Apostle Paul told us to come out of (Romans 12:2).

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Instead of renewing our minds with the truth of God’s Holy Word, we are saturating our hearts in man-made philosophies and opinions so we do not offend or risk persecution. Too many church leaders today are more concerned with the number of people attending their services than they are with the number of people being saved from an eternity apart from God. I can’t think of anything sicker than that.

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You Have No Rights

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I’m astounded by the number of professing Christians these days who are joining popular cultural choruses demanding their rights to engage in activities in direct contradiction of the Bible. For someone surrendered to the Lord, they can never say they have a right to anything. Let me put it bluntly: if you have surrendered your life to Christ, you have no rights.

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All of your rights have been signed over to Jesus. You have pledged to live your life by His standards and according to His Word. If you think you still have a right to do anything you desire, then you don’t know Jesus. He demands we leave everything behind and follow Him.

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All the Way

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Early in the book of Judges, we see Israel falling into a pattern of sin that continues to plague each of us today. In Judges 1:28, we read that, in opposition to God’s command (Deuteronomy 7:1-2; Deuteronomy 20:15–16), Israel neglected to drive out the peoples of the promised land completely. They stopped short of what God commanded them to do. The Lord told Israel to eradicate the idolatrous people from the land. If they didn’t, the people might tempt them to follow other gods.

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Israel drove out most of the people, but they stopped short of going all the way. They became complacent and figured what they had done was good enough. But stopping short of complete obedience to God is never good enough. It shows a lack of faith, a lack of commitment, laziness, or perhaps all the above. What it does not reflect is a sold-out devotion to Jesus.

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Do You Love Me More Than These?

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Many of us know the story of Jesus restoring Peter to fellowship with Him. We find the story in John 21:15-19, and much has been written and taught about this passage. The first question Jesus asked Peter was, “Do you love me more than these?” He may have been asking whether Peter loved Him more than the other disciples did, or perhaps if Peter loved Jesus more than he did his fellow disciples.

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Another option is Jesus may have been asking Peter if He loved the nourishment of God over bodily nourishment (they were eating breakfast after a night of hard fishing). While people teach the first two more often, I’d like to focus on the third option. I think “Do you love me more than these?” is a good question for us all to ask every day.

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