Radical, Chapter 1: Someone Worth Losing Everything For (Liz)

We all want to be right.  We will argue and defend our decisions and viewpoints, even and often if they do not align with Scripture.

A wise family member once told me: people don't change until the cost (or pain) of change is less than the cost (or pain) of staying the same.

She was right.  But another dimension must be considered: we may not truly understand the cost of staying as we currently are, because we do not always maintain an eternal perspective.  What we perceive as a small price to pay for the pursuit of life/liberty/happiness may, in fact, have enormous consequences for us, for those we love, and for those we should have loved (if we weren't too busy pursuing our own plans).

But God.

God, who gave us Himself, also gave us a means of knowing His will in the Word become flesh.  He has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  Everything.  Yet how often we try to find truth elsewhere, only to find ourselves disappointed!  Perhaps this is because we are not actually looking for truth, but for permission to continue behaving and believing as we do.

Sisters.  There is a better way.  Christ came to show it to us.

The passage in Luke 9 titled "The Cost of Following Jesus" presents us with three men who desire to follow Christ, but perhaps not fully.  It is easy to identify with them.  Who wouldn't want a place to lay his or her head at the end of the day?  A chance to bury his or her father?  A chance to say goodbye to loved ones?  But Jesus had a response for each of their hesitations, as He does for ours today.  First, we are told to follow Him.  He gives us strength to follow as we obey.  Then, we are told to keep our hand on the plow, and not to look back.  Catch that -- not. to. look. back.  There is no room for comparison, bitterness, or discontent in the heart of the Kingdom seeker.  He calls us to move unabashedly forward -- to invest in the soil of the lives around us, and to plant seeds of Truth (God's word) wherever we go.

All around us, we see messages of dissatisfaction.  Marketing is the science of generating and inflaming human discontent.  Buy this!  Sign up for this!  Look like this!  If you do, you will be satisfied.  

Yet whenever we look to an imperfect source -- ourselves, our relationships, our possessions -- we end up dissatisfied.  But when we look to Jesus, the perfect Author of every good story, there we find all we need.

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And now a couple of questions for you, dear sisters, based on quotes from the first chapter of Radical (please answer in the comments)...

1. "He was calling them to abandon their careers... to abandon their possessions... to abandon their family and their friends... Ultimately, Jesus was calling them to abandon themselves.  They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self-denunciation.  In a world that prizes promoting oneself, they were following a teacher who told them to crucify themselves."

What about the above paragraph is most threatening to you (i.e. what would you LEAST like to turn over to God)?

2. " 'Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.' If we are not careful, we can misconstrue these radical statements from Jesus in the Gospels and begin to think that He does not want the best for us.  But He does.  Jesus was not trying to strip this man of all his pleasure.  Instead he was offering him the satisfaction of eternal treasure.  Jesus was saying, 'It will be better, not just for the poor, but for you too, when you abandon the stuff you are holding on to.' "

What does the phrase "treasure in heaven" conjure up?  How do you think abandoning stuff could bring you ultimate joy?

Let's commit to praying over these truths this week, and asking God to show us what in our lives we are holding onto more tightly than Him.  He is sufficient.