Even If i Walk Alone

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

surrender

Total Dependence

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Have you ever prayed a prayer that immediately scared you? When I ask God to help me live in total dependence on Him, I get a little nervous. I am desperate to live my life in total dependence on Him. I don’t want to be independent and self-sufficient any longer. It’s an illusion, anyway. We aren’t self-sufficient. Jesus gives us the very breath we breathe each moment. We don’t create it, and we couldn’t if we tried.

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Everything we do is because our Creator has given us the ability to do it. Without Him, we could do nothing. The reality is we already live in a state of total dependence, but we spend our lives in a state of denial. We convince ourselves that we are the rulers of our destiny when nothing could be further from the truth. It’s all lies brought to us by the father of lies himself.

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What to do With Your Life

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In my years as a mentor and coach, I often talk with people who are trying to determine what they should do with their lives. We’ve all asked that questioned many times as we endeavor to follow Jesus. The problem is we try to figure out what to do for Jesus before we get to know Him with any depth. It’s backward. We must first cultivate a deep abiding relationship with Christ.

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As we do that, He will give us opportunities to serve and obey Him. Then, as those opportunities chain together, a picture begins to form of how God will use our lives to further His mission on earth. We get ourselves in trouble when we try to take the lead. Only Jesus knows where this world is going, so it makes far more sense to let Him lead the way.

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Following Jesus

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We find one of the hardest teachings of Jesus in Luke, chapter fourteen, verses 26- 33. I’ve rarely heard messages preached from this passage, at least not without several caveats and attempts to water down what Jesus was saying. I think we are on dangerous ground any time we try to soften or redefine the words of Jesus. Jesus was the most intentional person who ever lived. He meant what He said every time. One way we know this is because when Jesus gave a hard teaching such as the one in John 6:53-58, we learn a few verses later that many turned away from following Him.

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Jesus didn’t soften His message or try to say what He had said another way to win them back. No, He meant what He said, and He allowed the people to accept the teaching and follow Him or to walk away. He wanted everyone to trust in Him, but not at the cost of compromising His Word.

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Do Good People Go to Heaven?

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Aaron Rodgers, the star quarterback of the Green Bay Packers made waves when he proclaimed, “I don’t know how you can believe in a God who wants to condemn most of the planet to a fiery hell. What type of loving, sensitive, omnipresent, omnipotent being wants to condemn his beautiful creation to a fiery hell at the end of all this?” Mr. Rodgers is misinformed about the God in whom he does not believe.

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Jesus was clear saying He did not come to condemn the world, but to deliver it from the forces of evil (John 3:17-18). We are saved from the condemnation Mr. Rodgers talks about by bowing down to Jesus as Lord and surrendering our lives to Him. Those who reject Jesus condemn themselves, it is not the will of God (John 3:18; 2 Peter 3:9).

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The Rich Young Ruler

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I’ve written about the “rich young ruler” a few times before but reading about the plight of our persecuted brothers and sisters brought the story to mind again. These days when preachers deliver a sermon on this parable (Mark 10:17-22), they tend to lean one of two ways. Either they will brush aside the command of Jesus to sell everything as specific to the man in the story and not a general principle for all Christians to follow.

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Or they will say a few may be called to do this, but the important thing is we don’t hold too tight to the things of this world and not to pursue riches for our own comfort. I have held the opinion the point of the story is we must be willing to leave everything at a moment’s notice if that’s what God leads us to do, and not to question such a command should it come. I now believe all these interpretations may miss the point altogether.

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