Becoming Radical...

I have not posted on here in a very long time but never fear! I found a reason to use my blog once again and that reason is the book Radical by David Platt. I am reading it along with tons of other people all over the U.S. and posting my thoughts as I read. Thanks to Marla, I have a reason to blog, at least for now. ;)

The assignment for this week: Chapter One - Someone Worth Losing Everything For

"We were settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves." (Pg. 7)

I have never thought about it that way before. I have always been irked by the way large churches (and even small ones) used their money to make their church 'comfortable'. There are arguments for both sides of this though. 1. The money could be better used by feeding the hungry and helping the poor. OR 2. The church has to be 'comfortable' so that it will draw in the unbelievers and get them in the door to hear about Jesus. I'm not sure that the second argument is something that Jesus would have done. As Platt later explains, Jesus didn't exactly make it attractive to follow Him.

Platt goes on to talk about how 'we rationalize [certain] passages away' and make Jesus a 'nice, middle-class, American Jesus.' I think, in the most general sense, we all do this with not only Jesus but the Bible and Christianity in general. We mold and shape these things to fit our wants, needs and priorities. We come to a place where we like how life is going and how we are living it and if anything tries to shake us up from that life, we can find a way to generalize it and not feel like we are doing anything wrong. For example, if I am happy in life coming to Jesus only when I need Him, I'm sure I could find a verse in the Bible to generalize that sentiment so that I could continue to live that way without consequence in my own mind. I'm not sure if this makes sense but in the end, we Christians don't want to feel like we are doing wrong by God in any way, so we will find ways to always do right, even if it means sacrificing the real meaning of the Word.

I'm excited about where this book is going. These are topics I think about often and have too been conscious of. I am interested to hear Platt's perspective on these issues. It's not easy following Jesus, but the struggle and sacrifice more than makes up for it for the eternal reward. This is especially hard for Americans to see because of how privileged and spoiled we are both with material goods and time. We can have whatever we want, whenever we want as quick as we want. Christianity doesn't work that way.

Other people's comments on Chapter One can be read HERE :)