So this week I started the book, Radical, by David Platt. All I can say is WOW. This book will rock your world. It has mine. I've only read through chapter 3. I could sit and read it all in one night, but there is so much meat there I want to digest it slowly. And more importantly, I want what I read to actually "take" in me. Meaning, I don't want to just read this book and walk away saying what a great book it was. I want to read this book and do something with it. I want to be changed. Totally and completely changed.
The first chapter of the book is entitled, "Someone Worth Losing Everything For - What Radical Abandonment to Jesus Really Means." If that doesn't stop you in your tracks and make you take a hard look at your life, I don't know what will. This whole chapter is full of hard truths. I mean those truths that make you look at your own Christian walk and think "am I REALLY a Christ follower?"
This chapter has focused on the church as a whole basically and how we have settled with conforming Jesus and His Word to fit "us", not the other way around. Which is a crying shame. We are comfortable with our faith because honestly, our faith has never been challenged. Not like those in foreign countries who risk their very lives to come together and meet and worship Jesus. They risk everything. They don't have comfortable sanctuaries with air conditioning and cushioned pews. They don't have a magnificent praise team. No, what they have is a burning desire for Jesus that drives them to risk everything in order to follow Him...to pursue Him. Could you and I honestly look at ourselves and say we'd do that? Would we risk our families, our jobs, our very lives in order to come together with other believers to seek the heart of God? I'd like to say I would, but when it all came down to it, would I? Would you?
This has caused me to really look inside my heart. To truly examine the level of my committment to Christ. Have I abandoned everything for the sake of following Him? Am I taking His Word literally or just arranging it to fit my life? Am I living a comfortable christianity or am I willing to live radical in my pursuit of Christ? Am I willing to forsake everything...my family, my job, my friends, my hobbies, my time, my money, my life... all for the sake of pursuing the power of the Cross in my life? Phillipians 3:8 says, "Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ". DO I consider my life worth nothing in order to find Him?
Jesus is calling us all to abandon our comforts and everything that is familiar to us and follow Him. To pick up our cross daily and follow Him. To abandon all the attachments that this world has on us, and to follow Him. To consider our lives as nothing, and to follow Him.
I don't know about you, but I want to be a Christ follower who sees that Jesus is worth giving up everything I hold dear. He is worth my total abandonment in every area of my life. He is worth confronting the sin that resides in my heart so that I can have all the fullness of Him in my life. He is worth it all. And He IS Someone worth giving up everything for.
I believe our christian walk is about the journey. It's about the journey of discovering Jesus everyday. Everyday that we spend time with Him and in His Word, He reveals more of Himself to us and provides us with the opportunity to lay down our lives, to radically confront the sin in our hearts, and to pursue Him. You see, the pursuit of Him is the fun part. Jeremiah 29:14 promises us this, "You will seek Me and you will find Me when you seek with ALL of your heart." Did you notice what it said? It didn't say you'll find me when you seek me just a little....or with some of your heart...or with only the parts of your heart you feel comfortable enough to deal with and let go. No, it says we will find Him when we seek for Him with ALL of our heart. That is RADICAL seeking friends. Holding nothing back. Counting everything as loss for the sake of knowing Him. We will find Him when we are seeking Him. When we are radical in our abandonment of all we hold dear in this world...we will find Him. And He is a treasure worth finding.
So, here we are. We have the choice every day we wake up. Will we be radical Christ followers or comfortable christians? I say forget the comfortable....lets go for epic and change the world.
~Stacy
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