Sometimes You Have to Stand Alone
By Alexandra Copeland
After the Last Supper with the
disciples, Jesus told them in Matthew 26:31(NLT),
“Tonight all of you
will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the
Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’”
The disciples were his compadres; they were his homies.
He handpicked them to be his followers, and we can well
imagine that their comradery brought him quite of bit of
pleasure. Considering a bit of their history, some might
think of the disciples as an odd lot to choose, but it
speaks loudly to the transformative power of God’s love and
truth. It changes to infinite betterment all who want to be
changed. But we see in the foretelling that Jesus spoke in
Matthew 26:31, that when our faith is not fully mixed with
God’s love, fear can sneak in and cause us to do things we
will sorely regret.
God is really big on
preparation and progress. We can look at our own spiritual
growth and development to see this. Heavenly Father could
have created us humans to have a mind and heart complete
with the thoughts and heart of Christ. He could have made it
so that we come out of our mother’s womb praising Him and
giving Him glory, but God did not want robots. He wanted a
family. And the thing of which you and I must be incredibly
thankful is that He wanted children created in His own
image. He is so phenomenally extraordinary because He has
all power, authority, intelligence, and sovereignty. He can
choose to do with it what He will. He’s God! His Word
reveals His character and nature, and we can clearly see
that He chooses love every time. When it comes to making
choices, God created us with this same quality. We can
choose fear or we can choose love. It is completely left up
to us.
Faced with daily temptations
that are sent from the evil one to keep us off destiny’s
trail, we don’t always do so well with this thing called
‘choice’. We
sometimes make some doozies, and they come back to bite us.
Let that sink in a bit, because God has the power to prevent
us from making any mistakes. He could make sure that we
never slip up, never need correcting, and never have to
bother with do-overs. But then, if this happened, we lose
out on developing goodies like compassion, thoughtfulness,
gratitude, and other spiritual fruit that go into making
life worth the living. If we bypassed life’s missteps,
mishaps, and hiccups, we wouldn’t know the depth of God’s
forgiveness. We would not know Him as our tremendously
loving Father, and we wouldn’t be able to respond to His
goodness in a way that makes us partners with Christ.
As much as we can, it is
important for us to know the depths of Heavenly Father’s
forgiveness, mercy, love, grace, and righteousness, because
to know Him is to know ourselves; for we are made in His
image. Our lives are hidden in Christ, and when God sees us,
this is what He sees; He sees the Christ in us. The image of
Christ is our true identity.
God allows us to go at our
own pace. For the most part, we grow and know at a rate that
we set. It’s our choice to pick up the bible and study His
Word. It’s our choice to make prayer and communion with God
a daily practice. Because we set our own pace, sometimes we
run into situations that exceed our spiritual acumen to
handle them well. God has given us everything we need to be
spiritually prepared for anything that comes our way, but
many of us find ourselves facing a situation that throws us
off our games because we haven’t put on all of God’s armor
and prepared ourselves to go on to the battlefield. We don’t
always accept responsibility for being ill-prepared.
Instead, some of us become disillusioned in the faith, and
abdicate altogether our responsibility to it. We see a lot
of this these days. A wrong choice like this can greatly
alter our trajectory in life, and cause us to spiral
downward. Not only do we miss out in life, but we’re not
storing up treasures in heaven the way Christ taught us to.
Proverbs 14:12(NLT) tells us,
“There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in
death.” It doesn’t matter who you are or what your
status is in life, there will be a pivotal time in your
existence that is going to make or break you. It’s where the
rubber meets the road, so to speak, and everyone will
encounter this. We will either choose the path that
continues to lead us in the direction of the destiny God has
planned for us, or we will choose the wrong path, and face
the consequences that come with it. Heavenly Father is
forever rooting for us to choose the right path, so that we
can stay in His protective care and live a blessed life.
When we’re faced with a
situation that really places our faith on the burner, nine
times out of ten, we will feel very much alone. Fear sets in
and causes us to behave in a way that might surprise us.
Many of us experience a season where it feels like no one’s
standing with us, and all the folks we used to count on are
nowhere to be found. It can be very isolating, without
anyone understanding the intricacies that come with the set
of circumstances we’re facing. Before we lose heart, we must
force ourselves to remember what Jesus Christ endured so
that we could navigate through any hardship in victory.
Jesus called the disciples
his friends. He loved them, just as he loves us. They
abandoned him at the most pivotal time in his life and
ministry on earth, and we can never know how deeply this
hurt him. His emotions were not fragmented and all over the
place like ours. There was no human like Jesus Christ, and
there is no other God like him. His emotions were pure, and
probably more raw than any of us can imagine. He had all the
feelings and temptations that come with a human body,
because Hebrew 4:15(NIV) tells us,
“For we do not have a
high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses,
but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as
we are—yet he did not sin.” Jesus didn’t
skip out on us. He didn’t abandon ship the way many of us
have done. Hebrews 12:2b (NLT) tells us,
“Because of the joy
awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame.
Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne.”
Jesus knew the inheritance
that he was making available to us to receive. He knew that
He was making the way for his brothers and sisters—for his
bride. He knew that this road would not be easy, but if we
would stay the course and follow him, we will see the finish
line and receive our prize. Jesus was looking ahead, in the
future. Hebrews 12:2a tells us that we ought to keep our
eyes stayed on Jesus. He’s our champion who initiates and
perfects our faith. He made a way for our future because of
his love for us.
Many of us jump ship and
abandon our faith because we neglect the truth that God is
preparing us for what lies ahead. We want things on the
double, and we haven’t developed a tolerance for minor
discomfort. When it all boils down to it, the depth of our
love for him will be our maturity to stand in the midst of
fear and discomfort. The Apostle Paul tells us in
1Thessalonians 5:8 (NLT),
“But let us who live
in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith
and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our
salvation.” Our faith in God must be mixed with our love
for Him, and this love and faith will be our armor, and
boost our commitment and perseverance levels to stand on His
Word no matter what.■
Scripture taken from The
Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001,
2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
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