Radical

I'm reading this amazing new book called "Radical" by David Platt. It's really amazing and I'm learning a lot from it. He talks about how our Christianity has been put into a nice little box for our nice little culture. We can't make Christianity seem unappealing, we can't make it sound hard, we can't be straightforward with people about it. According to our culture, it's all about the advertisement. He goes back into Scripture and shows us how Jesus was quite blunt. "Take up his cross and follow me" doesn't exactly sound fun. In those days, a cross was a torture device. So basically, Jesus was telling people "take up this torture device and follow me"..............oh yay. That sounds like SO much fun. The Bible even tells us that Jesus had very few followers. 120 was the max by the end of his time on the Earth. Christianity is hard, it's dangerous, it can even be scary at times. But, the point is, it's worth it.

How many religions in the world depict God actually coming down to the humans to make life possible for them? None. How many of them show such love and sacrifice as Jesus did for us? None. Christianity is completely unique in the fact that GOD showed us such love and mercy. Our religion is one of mercy and grace. Most other religions require fear or works. Our religion requires commitment and love. Jesus actually allowed himself to be fully exposed to ALL of God's wrath towards sin. Let's put it like David Platt does. Imagine yourself looking at a huge dam from the bottom of it. Suddenly, the dam breaks and all the water starts pouring out at you, like a huge hurricane ready to suck you to your doom. But then the ground opens up and swallows the entirety of the water. All of that raging death has been taken by something else. Jesus swallowed all of God's wrath for us. He took that punishment because he loved us so much. Agonizing torture was the least of his worries that night. That really hit me. I could've been the one to endure that. Living in the darkness, never feeling God's love and guidance. But Jesus took that for me. He was willing even though he knew how much it would hurt. It makes me wonder if I would do the same. Until the answer is, "yes", I need to keep becoming more like Jesus. I will never be perfect but I must be willing to lay down my life for his cause. Only then can I truly become a radical Christian.

"And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."" ~Luke 9:23