B. Wang

The Cost of Following Christ requires a balancing act. It takes a balance of  Choice, Self Denial, Complete Dedication and Willing Obedience. Complete Dedication is part of the balance and at times can be the hardest. Dedication is the act of devoting or setting aside for a particular purpose. What are you completely dedicated to?

  ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’ -Luke 9:23

As I look at my life and what I do daily, I thought of a few things I have done daily in my life. Eating, Sleeping, Facebook, Texting, Working Out, Time with Family, Spending time in God’s word, Video Games, Sports… One of the first things that comes to mind that I was completely dedicated to is football. I started playing football in 6th grade and was blessed to play through college. It provided me tremendous memories and a college degree, yet these things were not just given to me. I was blessed to play football at Purdue (Though I had 4 season ending injuries). I didn’t just decide I wanted to play college football, I knew I had to work at it diligently and be completely dedicated. I was able to do that through: Eating to gain weight, lifting to get stronger, running to stay in shape, watching film to improve and practicing to get better. (more…)

michaelhyatt.com

For the past year I’ve been working on a personal project that has blessed me in so many ways. I can only hope that the results of this little endeavor will bless all of you as well. If you are curious as to what it is you’ll need to jump over to Michael Hyatt’s blog to read it for yourself! To all the men who have invested, poured into, and mentored me, I want to say thank you.

In life conflict is inevitable. No matter where we run to or where we hide, conflict will follow. Those who know me might find this next comment hard to believe, but I hate conflict. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and hard. But as much as I hate conflict, I hate unresolved conflict even more. It literally eats at my soul. Because what I have found as a result of my sinful nature is that when I get my feelings hurt and don’t address it I’ll usually do 1 of these 3 things we shouldn’t do when our feelings get hurt:

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B. Wang

‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’ -Luke 9:23

What does it look like to deny yourself? Daily there are things in our lives that we come across that we probably should abstain from. There are numerous things that distract us from being who we need to be in Christ. But more importantly there are those things that distract us from following Christ. What is it in your life that you need to deny that distracts you from what you need to be doing.
We need to continually strive to submit to God’s will and not to our own. There might be times where following the Lord mean’s giving up everything to him. Whether it’s friends, relationships, belongings, your future, your dreams at some point He might ask you to give these things up to follow Him. That is part of the true cost of following Christ, it costs you everything. That’s why he asks you to deny yourself. When you are discipline enough to deny yourself of the things of this world, he becomes greater and your become less. You have to give up your wants and desires to His calling on your life!

‘Indeed, I count everything as loss because of  the surpassing worth of  knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I  have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ’ – Philippians 3:8

If you want to make a change, if you want to take your faith more seriously, if you want to go that next level. You must count everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.

‘To get what you’ve never had, we must do what we’ve never done’
- Anonymous  

What do you need to deny yourself of?

Next Week – Balancing Act: Complete Dedication

With College Football just around the corner I can feel the excitement build. It represents so much more than a game, College Football means a fresh start, a new year, a reunion with friends, and a deep loyalty to your favorite school. So many people I talk to love this time of year, including my Wife. I would have to admit, I’m pretty geeked up for the season to start as well. Whenever we watch football there is nothing that irks us more than when our team throws an interception or fumbles the ball. But have you ever noticed how much more lenient coaches are with interceptions versus fumbles? They expect their players to hold on to the ball. But the reality is we all drop the ball once in awhile. So it isn’t a question of whether or not we will ever fumble, it becomes a question of what to do when we do drop the ball. Here are 3 suggestions: (more…)

‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’ -Luke 9:23

I believe that some people take this verse and immediately are scared about what Christ is calling us to do in this verse. How are we supposed to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily? That is actually something we will get into over the next few weeks, but I wanted to focus on the first part of what Christ’s instruction on following Him.

The ‘if’ and ‘would’ is what we might not think about. It presents a choice, because what follows is unexpected for many to follow. It’t not easy, it’s not popular, it’s not expected. (more…)

Remember when we were in Kindergarten and we dreamed of being Doctors, Astronauts, and World Changers? By the time we’re Seniors in High School we’ve stopped dreaming as big and we’ve lost our drive. As a result we have no idea what we want to do with our lives. When we have no direction, we lose our drive, we become lazy and soon find ourselves living for the weekend. One of the reasons we’re starting the Kanakuk Link Year is to initiate that drive back into the soul of college age students. For most college students they dread class, play video games,drink beer, graduate college, and get a 9-5 job they hate 5 years down the road. We want to change that. I’m tired of seeing students lose their drive for life. Here our 5 reasons I believe we lose our drive: (more…)

Daily we are surrounded by different scenarios that attribute to a cost. It might be dealing with the cost of something you purchase or what it will cost you personally to do something or follow someone. As I battle back in forth with these daily questions, another questions pops up. What’s the Cost of following Christ? I believe it’s something that most of us don’t ask ourselves on a daily basis. We are so wrapped up in this Dying Life it’s not that important to us. However, I believe it is something that should be at the forefront of our minds. Over the next few weeks we are going to be talking about the balance we must find of living in this world and following Christ with our whole hearts.

 ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’.
Luke 9:23 

What does that truly mean to you? Is he asking for everything? Dwell on this verse this week as we begin to dive into what the Cost of Following Christ really is.

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place,
keeping watch on the evil and the good.
A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”
-Proverbs 15:3-4