Following Jesus Isn’t Easy

Take a moment and consider your life. Examine your lifestyle and the desires of your heart. 

Now answer this question: “Is that what Jesus wants from your life?”

Here is the problem with the way many of us live. At least I know it is a problem for me. We want the promises of God, but we are not willing to live like a follower of Jesus. 

If all that was required to be a Christian was to show up on Sunday morning and sing few songs and listen to a sermon, then being a disciple of Jesus would be easy. A seat in the sanctuary would offer us safety and security.

Being a true follower of Jesus is anything but it easy and it certainly isn’t safe. 

It requires getting out of the sanctuary and living to a moral standard, a standard that makes us seem like fools or prudes in this world: as aliens and strangers (1 Peter 2:11; NASB). If people don’t think we are strange for the way we live, then we are not living the way God’s wants us to live. 

Let’s face it, it is hard to be different and stand out from the crowd.

Being a disciple of Christ requires a new set of dreams: 

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20; NASB). 

When we made the decision to accept Jesus as our Savior we gave up the right to decide what we will do with our lives. Our lives becomes a matter of God’s will. 

It is hard to give up on our dreams and follow after Jesus.

This is the point that I want you to understand: When we stay in the sanctuary we miss out on the best that God wants for us. 

The life God has created us to live is discovered in living out what we belief. This is what actual faith is all about.

The life of faith isn’t safe. It beckons us to leave our comfort zones. It asks us to risks the way we learned to live life so we can discover true life.

John 15:9-13 (NASB)

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

A question for you to ponder: Was Jesus safe in loving us?

Absolutely not! 

By loving us he made himself vulnerable to rejection. By loving us he served people who hated him. By loving us he gave up heaven and lived on this earth. By loving us he died a cruel death on the cross, taking on our sins. 

Jesus did not live a neat little safe life. Jesus faced struggles. Jesus had hardships. 

Do you know what? 

Jesus also knew love and joy. In spite of all the terrible things Jesus experienced, he still experienced the best life has to offer.

We don’t equate pain and joy. 

For us in order to be happy our lives have to be pain free.

According to Jesus the route to a full and joyous life is the route of pain. 

We discover the life God has for us when we live lives of love. Not just a life when we feel nice about other people, but when we make sacrifices to bring the Gospel into the world.

We don’t equate serving with love. 

For us love is about what other people do for us and how they make us feel. 

We discover love when we humble ourselves and become a servant to those around us. 

It doesn’t sound glamorous or fun. It is the way that we make the Gospel come alive in the world.

Jesus promised us a full life, but He did not promise a life that was comfortable and safe. 

The full and joyful life Jesus promised is discovered by loving God and loving people. 

Do you want the full life? Get out of the sanctuary and trust God with your life and love the people who live around you.

Assume the Best

Why is it that we want to believe the worst about other people?

It seems like humans have a tendency to attribute bad motives to the things people do and to believe the negative things we hear about people.

I think one reason is why we do this is because it is an easy way to feel better about ourselves.  

All of us have our own issues that we struggle with, those things that we would like to change about ourselves. When we hear about a person making a positive change or impact we become envious of their success. Rather than celebrating their success, we look for ways to tear them down (even if we would never verbally say anything).

This means when we hear something negative about someone else we secretly feel better about our situation, because we tell ourselves that they are not as good as they seem. 

Believing the worst about people helps us feel superior to them.

This is a terrible thing to do.

One reason it is terrible is because life is not a competition. Someone else’s success doesn’t diminish who I am one bit. We should be able to rejoice with those who achieve success and experience good things in life. 

The opposite is also true, someone else’s struggle doesn’t make us any better of a person. We should be able to empathize with people who are struggling because we have our own set of struggles.

Matthew 7:12 (NIV)

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Another great reason why we should assume the best about other people is because that is how we would like to be treated. When we stumble and fall we don’t want people thinking the worst about us. Rather, we want people to be sympathetic to our situation.

Remember, our failures aren’t always the result of sin on our part. 

Sometimes our failure is due to life circumstances. We fail to keep a promise because we had some sort of an emergency that prevented us for doing what we said we would do. 

There are other times when we are in the midst of making progress in overcoming some bad habit, and we have a moment of weakness and slip into our old behavior. Focusing on the failure overlooks the progress we have made.

There is one more reason why we should be generous and assume the best about other people: people are mean.

It could be that what we hear about another person isn’t even true, that it was made up be someone to discredit our friend.  If we cannot verify whether or not the story is true, we should trust our friend’s character.

Divisions happen in families, teams, organizations, and churches because people tend to believe the negative about each other. As followers of Jesus we should break that tendency and assume the best about one another. 

All of us are in the process of becoming better people and what we need is encouragement, rather than condemnation, along the way.

More than Just Words

 What we believe matters. Our beliefs have the ability to shape our thoughts, world views, and behaviors. This is why we need to make sure what we believe is true.

With that being said, we have to recognize that understanding certain doctrines doesn’t mean we have faith in God. We can intellectually affirm that God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, but that doesn’t mean that we actually have faith in God.

What is also true is that we can understand what those words mean, but still not understand God's character. If our relationship with God is based purely on definitions and doctrines, then we will miss experiencing God for who He truly is.

To gain a better understanding of God requires moving away from the intellectual pursuit of knowing about God to the pursuit of actually knowing God. That can only happen as we trust our lives to Him.

It is one thing to say that God is the great provider, but it is another thing to experience God providing for our needs. 

We can say that God is the Great Physician, but it is another thing to experience God’s healing power in our lives.

Our ideas of God fall short of who God is.

Hebrews 11:29-31 (NLT)

It was by faith that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground. But when the Egyptians tried to follow, they were all drowned.

It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho for seven days, and the walls came crashing down.

It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

Each of these examples mentioned in Hebrews 11 remind us what made the difference was the response of faith that allowed people to experience God’s power. Because of faith God parted the Red Sea, because of faith God tore down the walls of Jericho, and because of faith Rahab was rescued from Jericho.

All these people had an incomplete understanding of God, but because of their faithful actions they experienced God in a real way. This allowed them to see God in a more true sense then a careful study of Scripture is able to do.

Living by faith adds a real dimension to our understanding of God that our academic and devotional study are not able to provide.

Sunday Prayer: Keep Doing Good

 

Heavenly Father, I ask for the strength to do good. You have blessed me to be a blessing those around me, and that is what I want to do.

Give me hope to continue to bear Your image in this world. It is easy to become discouraged when I think what I am doing is not making any difference. Give me little glimpse of the difference my love and action is having in the world.

Open my eyes to the opportunities to show Your love to other people. I confess that too often I keep my attention focused on myself and the things I need to take care of. I want to see the world through the eyes of Jesus so I can discern the true need of people.

I give my life to You and Your Kingdom. Use me to make a difference in the lives of others. I pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.

Keep Moving in the Right Direction

 I need this reminder.

With the enthusiasm of New Year's Resolutions fading away, I am guessing you may need to hear it too.

Changing our behavior is hard work and it takes time. 

Very rarely are people able to make significant life changes over night. Not only do we have undo years of habit development, but often we have to deal with our own negative self talk. 

At times it really seems like there is a part of us that doesn't want to change, regardless of how bad and unhealthy our behavior may be.

Something that I have been dealing with the last few weeks is the voice that tells me, "That is too little and too late." There is a part of me that wants me to believe that it doesn't matter what I do, all my effort will be a waste in the end. At times it feels like true lasting change is a hopeless dream.

When I listen to that voice I fall back on my old habits. When that I happens I want to throw in the towel and give up.

This is why it is crucial to remember that a mistake is not an excuse to give up. Nothing would ever change if we gave up when a mistake was made.

We need to remember that mistakes happen. They are part of learning a new skill, and it is okay if we are not perfect. The more we work on what we are changing, the easier it will become.

Remember what John wrote; "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." (1 John 1:9; NLT)

God provided a way for us to leave our sin in the past. He knew that we were going to stumble and fall, and so He made sure that even in our sin there would be an opportunity to return to Him.

Because of forgiveness, our sin is not an excuse to give up.

If that is true for sin, how much more true is it for the mistakes we make as we try to alter our habits and change our lives?

Since God forgives our sins, then we should be able to forgive ourselves of the mistakes we make, and keep moving in the direction of becoming a better person.