RADICAL

“Do we really believe Jesus is worth abandoning everything for?”

“Do you and I believe him enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture—and maybe in our church—turn the other way?”

“I am convinced that we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe.”

“The first call every Christian experiences is ‘the call to abandon the attachments of this world.’” (Bonhoeffer)

These are some quotes from RADICAL, Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, by David Platt. I was given this book by the visitors from Peninsula Covenant Church and find it fascinating. Listen again:

“Underlying this American dream is a dangerous assumption that, if we are not cautious, we will unknowingly accept and a deadly goal that, if we are not careful, we will ultimately achieve.

The dangerous assumption we knowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability. The American dream prizes that people can accomplish, and we are drawn toward such thinking. But the gospel has different priorities. The gospel beckons us to die to ourselves and to believe in God and to trust in his power. In the gospel, God confronts us with our utter inability to accomplish anything of value apart from him. (emphasis mine)

Even more important is the subtly fatal goal we will achieve when we pursue the American dream. As long as we achieve our desires in our own power, we will always attribute it to our own glory….This after all, is the goal of the American dream: to make much of ourselves. But here the gospel and the American dream are clearly and ultimately antithetical to each other. While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God. (emphasis mine)”

WOW! Those words cut to the heart even for me serving overseas. I can and have and do get drawn into doing things in my own ability and power, to not trusting in God, to not stepping out in faith. What does this mean for me in this context in Congo? I have a lot more to read so I’ll share more along the way.

Pete