Forget About Yourself
29-31"What's the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk. You're worth more than a million canaries. 32-33"Stand up for me against world opinion and I'll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I'll cover for you?
34-37"Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me.
38-39"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.
Why is this so hard? We can not commit adultery, we can not use God's name in vain, we can not murder, not even hate or steal.... but we can't stop thinking about ourselves.
What's so great about us anyways?
You know, we love Jesus when He's a fad. Those "Jesus is my Homeboy" shirts were so cool for a few months... but honestly? (I cannot say this without sounding absurd) is He your homeboy?
God calls us to love the people that make our lives miserable. Not just like or tolerate... we are called to LOVE them. And He calls us to live in the world, not of it. (That means no drugs, filthy language, greed, p.m. sex, drunkenness, and the like).
We think that being a Christian is all about talking to our friends about Christ (which we're too scared to do) and reading our Bibles (which has been collecting dust over the past few weeks). We love Christ when He makes our days good (an A on a test) and cry to Him when our day sucks (the car broke down, again).
But yet... what about obedience?
I mean this in a broad term: doing what God tells us to do. It means all the aforementioned things (talking to others, reading the Bible, praying) and more. It means being "blameless and pure children of God."
I know I am guilty of this. I know it from the core of me. But why have I accepted it?
"It is simply absurd to say you believe or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you." G. MacDonald.
Annie wasn't sure what to make of it. She expected promiscuity like that from Logan or a guy from school, but never from Kyle. These past few weeks he has been so devoted to God, well, it seemed that way at least. Annie was too afraid to pick up her phone, too afraid to do anything, but stare off... hoping that maybe it would all go away.
