I joined my cousin Marla’s read-along of the book Radical by David Platt, and am a little late posting my thoughts on chapter one. That may be due to the fact that I’m having some trouble collecting said thoughts in any form that will make sense to people who may wish to read them. But oh well. If you feel like digging through/being confused, then read away… (and if you don’t have the book and are clueless as to what I’m rambling on and on about, you can read the first chapter for free on Amazon).

Chapter One – Someone Worth Losing Everything For

It’s interesting that I was introduced to this book when I was struggling in my own mind with some of the questions Radical raises. Over the last few years I’ve started to become uncomfortable with how self-absorbed I am. I’ve started to become uncomfortable with the fact that I can be apathetic to the needs of my neighbors because I’m too busy worrying about my personal happiness. Uncomfortable with the fact that I actually feel at times like my personal happiness is the point of life. I know that God has saved me for a greater purpose than that, and yet those two things tend to be at the top of my to-do list. Be comfortable. Be happy. Me, me, me.

Even in ministry, I’ve become uncomfortable with the fact that most of what we do can be done without a reliance on God. That we rely far more on marketing and business strategies than we rely on prayer and the Holy Spirit. That the attendance number on Sunday or the size of the offering determines a church’s idea of success. That some churches worry more about looking hip than following the great commission. That we’re so focused on ourselves that we actually alert the media when we do something for missions.

Basically, I summed up the first chapter of Radical with three words: “Wow, I suck.”

But then I decided to reflect a little further. I mean, I already knew I sucked. The Bible compares the height of my righteousness to filth when held up next to God’s. So I think that walking away from chapter one gleaning only feelings of guilt and inadequacy would be wrong. Conviction, yes. Self-loathing, not so much. Because no amount of “radical” living can make God love me more, and no amount of selfishness and sin can make him love me less. I am righteous before God because I have believed on Jesus and now He sees Christ when He looks at me. Not because I have sold my three valuable possessions and moved to a hut in a third-world country.

But.

I am convicted. So much. I have been given the greatest gift of all eternity, and I keep it to myself far too often. I don’t really live as I should, in light of what God has done for me. Do I really believe everything that Jesus said, and am I living in obedience to it? How then can I look at the needs of the poor and not feel compelled to do something? How can I not be compelled to share the gospel that has changed my life, with people who are lost and desperately need to hear?

I know that I want to live my life for Jesus, not for me. I want my life to reflect Him. But what does that really mean? I think David Platt summed it up in chapter one when he said, “Commit to believe whatever Jesus says… and commit to do what you have heard.”

It’s hard to read the first few chapters of Radical and not feel like I should move to Zimbabwe. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the point. God calls us all to go into all the world and preach the gospel. However, there’s a good chance He isn’t going to lead every single one of us to live in a foreign country. But being a follower of Christ means living in complete surrender to Him in every area of our lives, even if he does ask us to go.

Being “radical” means being obedient to Jesus. Even when it hurts. And most of the time, obedience to Jesus does hurt. I’m not talking about packing up and moving to Africa, either. I spent five years of my childhood in a third world country. I experienced the awful ache of selling all my “stuff,” saying goodbye to friends and family (long before the days of skype and facebook), and giving up the comforts of America the beautiful so that my parents could serve God where He had called them. Is that radical? I guess some would consider it to be.

Unfortunately, moving to a foreign country and missing my family like crazy was not anywhere near the hardest thing the Lord has ever asked me to do. Not even close. God didn’t look at that sacrifice and put a big check-mark next to the “radical” portion of my life and give me a free pass to heaven, or a free pass to feel more spiritual than others.

I think it’s dangerous to view living radically as only moving to a foreign land or selling all your possessions or never buying another frappuccino. Because if God doesn’t require those specific things of you, you’re not off the hook. Life without coffee and stuff, or even life in Indonesia has to be lived the same as it’s lived anywhere else. You wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, eat, work, take care of your family, and try to live a life that pleases the Lord. You just might do it with a caffeine headache or homesickness and culture shock in the mix, and without some of the comforts of your homeland. You will still struggle with sin. You will still struggle with bad attitudes. And as romantic as journeying to a foreign land sounds on paper, or seems when you experience a week of it, you will at some point, possibly daily, want to mangle the very people God has called you to love and share the gospel with (Try driving in Jakarta before you judge me).

I promise you won’t live in a constant state of uber spirituality just because you’re on a different continent. Or even because you’re depriving yourself of Starbucks. Slowly but surely, your caffeine-free life or the mission field will become comfort to you. It did for me; I cried as much when I left Indonesia as when I left the U.S. Coming home from the mission field was a sacrifice for my family, weird as that may sound. It was hard.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to belittle the sacrifice of people who give their lives to foreign missions. It’s very tough. But it seems we correlate obedience to God with moving to the jungle, and that isn’t His plan for every single person.

I guess my point is that we can just as easily make an idol out of sacrifices the same way we do comforts if we aren’t careful. We can use our sacrifices as a means to feel prideful about our spiritual lives and deny God’s grace, which tells us there is absolutely no sacrifice other than the one Jesus Christ already made that can earn us a spot in heaven. God doesn’t want our sacrifices. He wants obedience. If I can sacrifice money and possessions and move to a foreign land, but  I can’t love the person who just cut me off in traffic in Miami, am I living radically? If I’m the most frugal person on the planet, never waste a dime and support 12 orphans, but I can’t bite my tongue when the opportunity to gossip comes along, am I living radically?

The truth about believing what Jesus says and doing it, is that everything Jesus said was radical. He said stuff like, loving those who love you isn’t enough; you have to love those who hate you as well. Not murdering people isn’t enough; if you hate someone in your heart, it’s the same as murder. Being physically faithful to your spouse isn’t enough, because just thinking lustfully about someone is as much a sin as acting out the thought. If somebody slaps one of your cheeks, don’t retaliate. Let them slap the other one too. Oh, and by the way, you’re not allowed to be proud, either. Live in a constant state of humility. Regard everybody else as being better than you.

Moving to Nigeria is sounding easier all the time.

Radical is loving your neighbor as yourself–even if your neighbor is right here in the States and repulses you with his lack of intellect or political beliefs or blasting of disco music while you’re trying to sleep.
Radical is loving your enemies–even when your enemy is the controlling busy-body in the next cubicle, who gets your blood boiling more than any member of Al Quaeda ever could.
Radical is denying your flesh what it desperately wants out of obedience to Christ.
Radical is surrendering your life to Someone you have never seen.
Radical is trusting God with your future when you have absolutely no clue where He’s leading.
Radical is following God when where he’s leading you scares you to death.

Is Jesus worth all that? Is He worth losing everything for? Is He worth giving up the right to run my own life? Is He worth obeying even when it hurts? It’s a little scary to say yes to those questions when I don’t know everything that will mean for me personally for the rest of my life. But I do know based on who He is, and who He has been in my life to this point, that scary or not, nothing on this earth is worth living without Him.

I want to live like I believe that. As frightening as it sounds. I want to serve Him, not myself. I want to obey Him. I want to live sacrificially and give sacrificially. Not because I need to in order to earn God’s love, but because His love for me is so amazing that I can’t help but live that way in response to it.

Geez, this is only the first chapter.

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