RADICAL FAITH

In our American churches, we have for the most part missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable. The words of Jesus are not comfortable and not easy. They are radical, demanding, and difficult.

In Luke chapter 9, Jesus said that His followers may not have shelter, that they were not to delay to say goodbye to their family or to bury the dead. In Luke 14 He said we have to hate our families, and we have to carry a cross, and we have to give up everything in order to follow Him. In Mark 10, Jesus told a very promising potential follower that he had to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor before he could follow Jesus.
Even Jesus’ call to His disciples in Matthew 4, “Follow me” was pretty radical. It meant they were to abandon their comforts, their careers, their possessions, their family and friends. Jesus was calling them to abandon themselves, their dreams and desires, their plans, their security, everything they knew to follow Jesus.

Do you and I take the call of Jesus seriously? Or have we rationalized it, explained it, and watered it down until it has little impact on in our lives? Maybe we have taken the radical Jesus of the Bible and made Him into an acceptable Jesus that is compatible with our American dream version of Christianity. A Jesus who allows us to indulge in American materialism, who doesn’t mind lukewarm followers, who doesn’t expect us to actually give up our comfort or our careers.

Many Christians are concerned with balance, with not being extreme. It seems to me that Jesus is calling us to be extreme.

WARNING: I recently read the book, Radical (Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream) by David Platt and my usual zeal has been upped a notch. Future blog posts may be extreme.