Radical

I can't quite believe I've only now got round to reading this wonderful, wonderful book. It's so challenging- certainly not just to the American Dream but to British ones too (and every nationality for that matter!).

David Platt:

We were settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to self when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning self.

Ultimately, Jesus was calling [the 12] to abandon self. They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self-denunciation. In a world that prizes promoting self, they were following a teacher who told them to crucify self. And history tells us the result. Almost all of them would lose their lives because they responded to his invitation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

The cost of discipleship is great. But I wonder if the the cost of non discipleship is even greater. 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.

The price of our non-discipleship is high for those without Christ. It is high also for the poor of this world. Consider the cost when Christians ignore Jesus' commands to sell their possessions and give to the poor and instead choose to spend their resources on better comforts, larger homes, nicer cars and more stuff.

The cost of non discipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of non discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him

This email was sent to David Platt from a woman at his church who went to Guatemala:

"After spending a week around precious children who eat a small cup of porridge a day, the question I have come back to Birmingham [US] asking God is why he has blessed me when others have so little. And this is what God has shown me: 'I have blessed you for my glory. Not so you will have a comfortable life with a big house and a nice car. Not so you can spend lots of money on vacations, education, or clothing. Those aren't bad things, but I've blessed you so that the nations will know me and see my glory.'"