It's a new year! Are we going to still continue down that same path? You know the path "everyone" looks for... the easy way out. Anyone loves an easy road we don't have to worry about any speed bumps or stop signs. We don't have to worry about any caution signs and we never would have to put on our hazard lights. Unfortunately, life is never that easy... even when we belong to God.
A lot of people believe that when they give their hearts to Christ that life will be easy from then on out. Christ says to give Him our burdens because His yoke is easy and His burden is light. It doesn't say our burdens will disappear. The difference is when we cast our cares upon Jesus He "helps" carry our burdens instead of us carrying them all by ourselves. However, we need to also realize that when we belong to Christ and our identity is through Him we are going to take on a lot of His burdens as well. Jesus never took the easy road... if He did He would have never willingly submitted His body to go through torture and be crucified on the cross for us. It wasn't even "just" the physical agony that Christ went through. When Jesus was alive He lived the life of an outcast maybe even an outlaw according to the pharisees. He was always running from people who wanted to kill him ever since he was a baby. The people who welcomed Him in put themselves in the line of danger as well. Peter was a good example when he was afraid for himself so he denied Christ three times. Thankfully Christ forgave Peter because the bible says "anyone who denies Me will be denied before My Father in Heaven". We don't want to deny who we are in Christ just to take the easy road. Yet people do it all the time.
When I grew up in the public schools there was one half of a year in middle school where I was harassed because of my faith. Children spit on me and called me the Virgin Mary, why? because I was "saving myself" for my future husband and honoring God. To them that was an open opportunity to harass me. I am sure we all go through things like this where we are harassed through situations because of our faith even if it's just a joke a work. There are even people who "die" for their faith because they will never deny Christ. The thing I'm constantly reminding myself is... yes I will be persecuted but "blessed" are the persecuted we wont get treasures in earth but our treasure is in Heaven. We wont "fit in" or "belong" here but our home is in Heaven and I am okay with that.
The bible says "what good does it do a man to profit the whole world but loose his soul". There are people who are walking around with one foot in the world and one foot in God and they can "not" serve two masters. The master of the world is "Satan" and I "know" I want "nothing" to do with him. However there are still Christian's who believe it's okay to live a worldly "easy" lifestyle and belong to Christ. You may "think" that that road is easy but the place it ends up will be far more torturous than you can ever imagine. So be careful which path you take the path less traveled but with a promise at the end or the path which is beaten the path of the world that leads to destruction.
Next time you come to the fork in the road remember to read the signs. Do not take easy street this year.
and take up their cross daily and follow Me.
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