I've been reading this book called Radical by David Platt. let me say, it is excellent! very challenging to the Christian faith. i have loved it so far. a lot of what he has been saying i've related to also. i'm gonna write some of the points in the book in this post for you. the point of the book is saying that we aren't called to a comfortable Christian life of going to church week after week, giving God an hour or two on Sundays and Wednesdays, never changing, maybe giving a tithe and expecting God to drop all this immense wealth into our laps so we can say that we are blessed. for one it's not about us we are called to a life of radical obedience to Christ. we aren't called to all be rich and have everything. there are entirely more important things in life than football or our job. we gotta wake up! several parts of the world haven't even heard about Jesus! our plans and goals need to be swallowed up in His.
following Jesus is going to cost us something, in Luke 9, there's a story about these 3 guys, so they come up to Jesus and their like we want to follow you Jesus!! the first dude says, "I will follow you wherever you go." (Verse 57) Jesus basically tells him that he might as well expect that he's gonna be homeless if he does. to the next guy Jesus says, "Follow Me." the man says, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." and get this, Jesus says, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." the third guy says, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
so these 3 guys want to follow Jesus, and they have some pretty simple conditions. i mean the guy wants to bury his dead dad, Jesus says no, the other dude wants to say bye to his family, sounds reasonable...i would want to, but Jesus is like you have to give up everything and not look back. it's all or nothing, pick up your cross, die to yourself.
we do have to give up everything to follow Jesus. we have to love Him with everything in us! we have to love Him more than anything in this world! He has to be our magnificent obsession. it's completely possible that He might tell us to sell everything we have and to go serve Him someplace. we have to abandon the attachments we have to this world. we are not of the world...we are a new creation. we are made in the image of Christ.
i met this man and his wife in Mexico last year, Jerry and Susy McNally, they gave up everything they had to go where the Lord was leading them. they moved to Mexico with their 4 or 5 kids, and they had like no money, not really any security, they were this white family in a different, dangerous country, they had only God and they knew how to hear His voice...today they are the founders of this big orphanage called Esperanza Viva. you can read more about them and their ministry at this link:
http://www.lovehopemercy.org/about-us-founders.asp
so Jerry asked us one night what we thought we were called to be or do...i wasn't really sure, and i think a couple of people may have said some stuff. but he said, our calling is to live a life of total obedience to Christ. now i know how true this is, it's not about our plans, our life is not our own, it's Christ's...
another Bible story brought up in the book was Matthew 13:44
"the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. when a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went a sold all he had amd bought that field."
the man happened upon this great treasure that was apparently worth more than he owned because he sold all he had to buy the field. it must have been pretty valuable!
anyway something else he said in the book directed to this verse was,
'with joy you sell all you have, abandon it all because you've found something worth losing everything for.
Do we believe He is worth abandoning everything for? Do we believe that Jesus is so good, so satisfying, and so rewarding that we will leave all we have and all we own and all we are in order to find our fullness in Him? Do we believe Him enough to obey Him and follow Him wherever He leads, even when the crowds in our culture-and maybe our churches, turn the other way?'
so are you going to say yes? even before you hear what Jesus wants you to do, will you say yes?
i want to live this life of radical obedience, it will be super hard! but i want more of Jesus! and talk about dying to your flesh daily! but it will be so worth it...
