Radical

Carrie and I have realized that we are beginning to forget how to read and how to speak/ write in the English language. Our solution? A little more reading!! To aid in our English deficiency we have decided to start picking out a book for each other to read every month or so. The first book I picked out for Carrie to peruse is Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It's a super good book if you haven't read it yet. Carrie picked out Radical by David Platt for me to read. He's the pastor of Brook Hills church in Birmingham, AL. We have been listening to some of his podcasts and he can really bring the Word, and I think some of Carrie's youth girls have read Radical and really liked it. So anyways I'm only about a chapter deep but totally enthralled. We figured we would try to share some quotes and ideas from the books we read and also a little about what God teaches us through these readings, so here ya go:



Radical
Chapter 1 - "But we don't want to believe it. We are afraid of what it might mean for our lives. So we rationalize these passages away. 'Jesus wouldn't really tell us not to bury our father or say good-bye to our family. Jesus didn't literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor. What Jesus really meant was....' And this is where we need to pause. Because we are starting to redefine Christianity. We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with."

Wow. I know I am extremely guilty of the 'What I think Jesus really meant was...' mentality. Honestly, how many times have you been part of or heard a discussion on a Biblical view on money. What are we all quick to say? Well money isn't the root of all evil, the love of money is. So what I think Jesus really meant in Luke 18:22 when he says to sell your possessions and give to the poor is _________. Fill in the blank. Probably it was something that you or whoever was talking is most comfortable with, like maybe make sure you give your tithe, or make sure you give 5 dollars to that guy with the sign at the red light. Or maybe we just need to make sure that we would be willing to give up our possessions if Jesus asked us to (but surely he would never, right?) Or what about Luke 14:26 - If anyone If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Well what Jesus meant was... that we just need to make sure we have our priorities in line; we should make sure that he is one of them. It's hard for us to grasp that Christ calls us to love him and the truth of his Gospel so incredibly much that our love for anything else in this world, be it our wife or mother or father or grandmother or children or even our own lives, should look like hate in comparison to our love for him.

Like I said, I am totally guilty of rationalizing Jesus. And doing this allows me to follow a God that I am more comfortable with: a God that is lives in the middle to upper class suburbs and drives a decent car and just goes to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, might even go on a week long mission trip or two, gives just the right amount of 10% of his paycheck every week to his church, only tells someone about his love for them when they come up to him and ask and avoids anything uncomfortable or extreme. But does this really sound like the Jesus I have read about in the Bible? Does this sound like the Jesus that told the rich young ruler to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor? Or the same Jesus that tells us to completely deny ourselves and follow him? This has made me realize that I need to go back through the Gospels and study them for myself to see who the Bible says Jesus is, not who my pastor or mentor or friend or the speaker I heard at a convention says Jesus is.

"He [Jesus] is beginning to look a lot like us because, after, all, that is whom we are most comfortable with. And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves."

Man, that is super scary to think about, but honestly, if I have become comfortable with a God that I have semi-concocted in my head that wouldn't really ever call me out of my safety net, wouldn't ever really call me to give up all I have, wouldn't really ever call me to leave my friends and family, that wouldn't really send people that I know and love to hell, is it not safe to say that I may very well be guilty of worshiping myself? Definitely scary to think about.