\u201cDo we really believe Jesus is worth abandoning everything for?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you and I believe him enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture\u2014and maybe in our church\u2014turn the other way?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first call every Christian experiences is \u2018the call to abandon the attachments of this world.\u2019\u201d (Bonhoeffer)<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderlying this American dream is a dangerous assumption<\/em> that, if we are not cautious, we will unknowingly accept and a deadly goal<\/em> that, if we are not careful, we will ultimately achieve.<\/p>\n
The dangerous assumption<\/em> 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<\/span>. (emphasis mine)<\/p>\n