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Radical

david platt, Radical, Simply...Living For Him

Radical…Changing Our Thinking…

I have previously written about the book Radical, and how it is changing my thinking in so many ways.
I have actually been reading bits at a time because it takes me awhile to digest it. It’s that good. 
This week I finally finished the book and it concludes with an experiment for one year.  David Platt, proposes this challenge:

1. pray for the entire world
2. read through the entire Word
3. sacrifice your money for a specific purpose
4. spend your time in another context
5.commit your life to a multiplying community

Imagine if we as do these things for one year. 
We will be changed.
He explains,
“You and I live in a culture where we gather in stadiums and around televisions for hours at a time to watch guys run around a field with a pigskin ball in their hands as they try to cross a white line. 
We express enthusiasm, emotion, and affection for football and other sports, and it begs the question, what would happen in our culture if the church prayed with such passion? What would happen if Jesus dominated our affections more than the superficial trivialities that garner our attention? 
What would happen if we spent hours before God praying on behalf of the church, the lost, and the poor around the world? Of course, your Radical Experiment does not have to start in a stadium. It can start in your living room or prayer closet. Any place can be the place you begin to connect the practice of prayer with the purpose of God in the world. “


Wow.
I personally,  have been reading through the Chronological Bible in One year and we have been praying using the website Operation World to pray for our world.  I will also focus on the other challenges.
I love how this book can state things that I already knew, yet I am seeing them with new eyes.
This book has been an amazing journey to read. It has taken my mind to places it needed to go.  To understand the gospel message is not the comfortable message we sometimes want it to be.  Our purpose is for Him and spreading the Gospel to all ends of the earth.  

“While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.” 
David Platt

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© copyright 2012 – All rights reserved

SimplyLivingforHim

February 18, 2012 by
david platt, poverty, Radical, simplicity, Simply...Living For Him

Radical…

Last week I wrote about the book Radical that I am reading. To be honest, I can only read it in small snippets because it is just that powerful. I can only read a chapter at a time and then really must digest it before moving on.  
As someone who desires to live more simply, this book is just hitting home on many levels.  It in convicting and eye opening.
My desire for simplicity often tugs at me because I think about other people in this world suffering, while this country is indulging.  So part of my quest comes from the desire of my heart for hurting people.
So, this week my reading in Radical has really hit this nerve:


More than twenty-six thousand children today will breathe their last breath due to starvation or a preventable disease. 
As a mom and as a human being,  that is heart wrenching.

Every Sunday we gather in a multimillion-dollar building with millions of dollars in vehicles parked outside. We leave worship to spend thousands of dollars on lunch before returning to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of homes. We live in luxury. 



Meanwhile, the poor man is outside our gate. And he is hungry. In the time we gather for worship on a Sunday morning, almost a thousand children elsewhere die because they have no food. If it were our kids starving, they would all be gone by the time we said our closing prayer. We certainly wouldn’t ignore our kids while we sang songs and entertained ourselves, but we are content with ignoring other parents’ kids. Many of them are our spiritual brothers and sisters in developing nations. They are suffering from malnutrition, deformed bodies and brains, and preventable diseases. At most, we are throwing our scraps to them while we indulge in our pleasures here. 
~Radical, David Platt
The church is not a building, it is a body.  And while we strive to make things more comfortable for ourselves here, people are dying from lack of simple necessities.
How does that happen?
How do we live in a country where obesity is a problem, when billions are starving?
How do we live in a country plagued by debt, when over 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 dollars a day?
How do we spend money on storage units to hold all of our “stuff,” when people are living in a meager tent with just the shirt on their back?
How do we hoard, when others struggle to live…
How do we indulge, when babies die?

It is not an easy issue to wrap your mind around, but as Christians one we must.
My heart really hurts over these issues.  As Platt states in his book, we have a “blind spot” to these issues.  Like if we just pretend its not there, it is ok. But as Christians we can NOT do that. We must have a heart for the poor.
   
Proverbs 3:27-28
Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow” — when you now have it with you.

Matthew 25:34-40
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'”

Acts 20:35

“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”


1 Corinthians 10:24
Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.


James 2:5
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

James 2:15-17
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.


I do not know how to reconcile all of this, except to pray. Pray that I will follow God’s leading in my response to this, as well as the church’s response.
I was not saved for myself. But to live for HIm. And He calls us to help those in need.  

© copyright 2012 – All rights reserved

SimplyLivingforHim

February 2, 2012 by
david platt, Radical, Simply...Living For Him

Radical

I have been wanting to read the book, Radical by David Platt for a very long time.  To be perfectly honest, I had put it off out of fear. Fear that what I would read would impact me in a great way. Fear that the truth would sting.

Well, today I started the book. And I am completely blown away.

Here are some quotes from the book to give you an idea just how incredible it it.


“But then I realize there is never going to be a day when I stand before God and He looks at me and says, ‘I wish you would have kept more for yourself.’ I’m confident that God will take care of me.” 

“We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.” 


Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves.  Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gate of contemporary Christian affluence” 




“The modern-day gospel says, ‘God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved.’ Meanwhile, the biblical gospel says, ‘You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, & in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life. Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do.” 

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy… It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.” 


“As long as you and I understand salvation as checking off a box to get to God, we will find ourselves in the meaningless sea of world religions that actually condemn the human race by exalting our supposed ability to get to God. On the other hand, when you and I realize that we are morally evil, dead in sin and deserving of God’s wrath with no way out on our own, we begin to discover our desperation for Christ.” 




“If we were left to ourselves with the task of taking the gospel to the world, we would immediately begin planning innovative strategies and plotting elaborate schemes. We would organize conventions, develop programs, and create foundations… But Jesus is so different from us. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, he wandered through the streets and byways…All He wanted was a few men who would think as He did, love as He did, see as He did, teach as He did and serve as He did. All He needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and they would impact the world.” 




“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 to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark” 


“My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus’ words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him. ” 

Are you humbled? Intrigued? Blown away?

I am.

If you have read the book, please share in the comments below your thoughts.  As soon as I am finished, which won’t be long-I can hardly put it down- I plan on writing a series on these ideas.

Until then, I urge you to ponder these thoughts, get the book, and explore what our “America Dream” has done to this country, yet alone Christianity.

* all quotes are from the book Radical, by David Platt

© copyright 2012 – All rights reserved

SimplyLivingforHim

January 25, 2012 by