Radical: Taking Back Your Faith

This past summer our family spent a week with family in friends in Springfield, Missouri. Karen and I served on the staff of Second Baptist Church for many years and we always enjoy getting to hang out with those with whom we served. One thing we noticed that stood out above the fun and festivities was how frequently we kept coming across a book that many were reading entitled Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.

Conversations regularly centered on how people were being challenged by what they had read in that book. With several recommendations from friends it wasn’t long before I downloaded the book and read it. Personally, I like the idea of living in a radical way. Radical sounds adventurous, risky, and exciting! I am fairly confident living a radical life includes those things but the author, David Platt, also reminded me that living radical takes personal sacrifice.

Here are some questions I am probing personally after reading the book:

• Am I giving into a dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the bible and twist him into a version of Jesus I am more comfortable with?

“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 our selves.”

• Am I willing to abandon the attachments of this world?

“Deitrich Bonhoeffer, A German Theologian penned one of the great Christian books of the twentieth century. In it he wrote that the first call every Christian experiences is “The call to abandon the attachments of this world”

• Am I living a self-denying faith or a self-indulging faith?

“The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives proclaiming the Kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the gospel remain in the dark.”

“We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in his Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him…. So the challenge for us is to live in such a way that we are radically dependent on and desperate for the power that only God can provide.”

• Am I extending the Glory of God?

“[God] created human beings, not only to enjoy his grace in a relationship with him, but also to extend his glory to the ends of the earth. Simple enough. Enjoy his grace and extend his glory. This is the twofold purpose behind the creation…”

“God blesses his people with extravagant grace so they might extend his extravagant glory to all people on the earth. This basic, fundamental truth permeates Scripture from beginning to end.”

“We must guard against misunderstanding here. The Bible is not saying that God does not love us deeply. On the contrary, we have seen in Scripture a God of unusual, surprising, intimate passion for his people. But that passion does not ultimately center on his people. It centers on his greatness, his goodness, and his glory being made known globally among all peoples. And to disconnect God’s blessing from God’s global purpose is to spiral downward into an unbiblical, self-saturated Christianity that misses the point of God’s grace.”

Radical is both a challenging and insightful book. David Platt raises many important questions that every believer should personally wrestle with. For to long success has been defined by the fat bank account, the sleek car, and the big house. Radical reminds us that “real success is found in radical sacrifice. Ultimate satisfaction is found not in making much of ourselves but in making much of God. The purpose of our lives transcends the country and culture in which we live. Meaning is found in community, not individualism. Ultimately, Jesus is a reward worth risking everything to know, experience, and enjoy.” Radical, is a book worth reading.

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