I’ve just read a book, Radical, by David Platt. In it he addresses the comfort of American Christianity. He asks what are we really sacrificing? There are people all over the world that risk their lives to be Christians. What are we doing to help them? Billions of people all over the world don’t know Christ. What are we who identify ourselves as Christians doing to bring Christ into their lives? Are what we are doing to introduce Christ, feed the poor and heal the sick enough?
I admit I’m not doing much. I go to church every Sunday, I pray several times daily, and when the opportunity presents itself I witness and disciple. I belong to small groups in our church. It’s all comfortable. At worst, I may have to go to an hour long meeting when I’d rather be home. Sometimes I don’t want to go to choir practice, but go, and it’s always a good thing. Not a sacrifice at all! Geeeeeeze. This is, says Platt, how most of us experience our Christianity. Comfortably.
Jesus told His disciples there was pretty much mostly suffering that was going to result in their following Him. Platt contends we’ve made the Christianity a comfortable refuge and are not doing the things Jesus challenged us to do. There’s the story when Jesus told the rich man to give away his stuff and then he’d be able to follow. We don’t even give away a little of our stuff, yet still claim we follow.
An interesting turn. When we join a church, we are asked if we accept Christ. Platt asks, “Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don’t we need him?”
Much of the book are stories of people that decided to take Jesus’ Commission seriously, that in fact sold possessions, and went into the world to feed the poor, heal the sick, and put faith into their Faith. Jesus knew His path to be difficult. He turned people away not willing to commit. Besides telling the rich man to give away his possessions to follow, he told another man that wanted to bury his father first, to let others bury him. He told a third that wanted to say goodbye to his family first, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.” As Platt puts it, a relationship with Christ “requires total, superior and exclusive devotion. Become homeless. Let someone else bury your dad. Don’t even say goodbye to your family.”
It’s a challenge, and far beyond me, I'm thinking at this point. Of course these aren’t absolutes. Everybody being homeless and broke doesn’t make a lot sense, and isn’t practical. We do need, I think, to reevaluate how we are practicing our Christianity. God gave us our gifts (talents), and we need to evaluate if and how we’re using them. He gives some practical advice at the end.
He advises over the next year to pray for the entire world. There are 4.5 billion people that don’t know Christ, and over a billion that live on the edge of starvation. Those of us that pray know the power of it. It’s a huge order, praying for the entire world. He provides us a guide, “Operation World”, and the website is www.operationworld.org.
He challenges us to read the entire Bible over the next year. Combined with praying, he asks, how much will your life radically change? I try and fail every year. I mean really, Leviticus?
He challenges us to not only tithe, but sacrifice. Give a little more. He advises to be prudent and careful, making sure your money goes to where it’s supposed to. Give more of your time.
Go somewhere, another neighborhood, town, even country if you can. He challenges us to get out of our “context” and disciple.
I must confess, I let these things pass. Someone else will do it, and I'll just support them. I have to ask myself, do I have the Faith it takes to step up to the plate of The Great Commission:
“Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’.”
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