radical Christianity

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Greeting Card Mentality

Who doesn’t like to receive a well chosen greeting card to help you celebrate a wonderful occasion, like a birthday or anniversary, or one that helps you get through an especially rough time in your life?

Greeting cards are meaningful among Christians when they contain a verse of Scripture that expresses hope and encouragement. We can all agree that these cards are sweet and kind expressions, and we appreciate every kind thought.

However, could it be that we are sometimes guilty of living a “greeting card” mentality while neglecting the most important aspect of the verses we use in our greeting cards?

For example, we often use a familiar verse in Romans 8:28 as a challenge that we can do anything with Christ’s help. But we ignore the over all context of the passage that admonishes us to pray without ceasing, and to pray being led by the Holy Spirit. It’s not about us achieving a personal goal with God’s help, but about developing an attitude of prayer and following God’s will.

I recently read a “Our Daily Bread” devotional that told the story of a man’s wife who had bought a birthday card for a friend. The card had a scripture from Deuteronomy 28:63 that read, ”The lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply”. She was so fascinated with the beauty of that statement that she wanted to look up the scripture and read the rest of the passage. When she read the whole verse it painted a different picture when read in it’s context. The whole verse read, “Just as the lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy.”

The proper context of the whole passage is not about God’s favor and blessing, but about His judgement because Israel had turned their back on Him. Yes, God takes pleasure in blessing His people, but He also warns us that we are destined for greatness and blessing only when we are serving Him with all of our heart.

Bottom Line

To walk with the Lord means we are intentional and radical about our faith. Being intentional is to have forethought. For me, that means I must have a time each day that I focus on my need for His daily guidance. I acknowledge that “Apart from Christ I can do nothing.” Some would call this daily devotions, I prefer to call it my God focus time. This helps me recognize and acknowledge a daily need for Him.

Being radical is simply being fully surrendered and abandoned to the will of God. It’s a reminder that there is nothing more important than being right with God and walking in daily fellowship with Him.

How would you characterize your walk with God, “Greeting Card mentality” or “Intentional and Radical?”

“As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.” (Galatians 6:14 NLT)

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Surrender and Abandonment

“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. “ (Romans 12:1)

Surrender and Abandonment are not new concepts; this Biblical principle is seen throughout Scripture. God’s relationship with man is based on his degree of surrender and abandonment. Because of His absolute Holiness and sovereignty, He demands absolute surrender and abandonment of our life.

To the outsider, this may seem like an unreasonable request, encroaching on man’s free spirit and the ability to live his own life on his own terms. However, to the committed follower of Christ, we realize that God in His wisdom knows that unless we are willing to cast ourselves on Him completely, we will go the way of the world. In other words, absolute surrender and abandonment is for our benefit. The deepest contentment and inner peace is found in absolute surrender and abandonment.

When we live in this state we are living in complete trust and dependence upon our Lord. The Biblical principles of “In order to receive we must give” and “In order to save our life we must lose our life” are all connected to the principle of surrender and abandonment.

God wants us in the position that we have no place to turn but Him. He wants us to hold on tightly to nothing but His promises. He wants nothing to be more passionate to us than our love and devotion to Him. The unique thing about this proposition is that it enables us to love our friends, spouse and our children with a quality of love that we could never manufacture on our own. It causes us to love and give ourselves to those who are unlovely, troubled and hopeless. We become a magnet of God’s love to the world.

About this time every year my thoughts move toward how I want next year to be different. Rather than setting a lot of goals that I will probably give up on in a few months, I like to focus my primary New Year’s resolutions on a renewed commitment to surrender and abandonment. I review those areas that I struggle with surrendering. I examine those areas that I have a tendency to surrender and then take back. What are those areas of my life that I just can’t let go of?

I think I am doing pretty well at living the Christian life until I start to examine those areas where there is a lack of surrender and abandonment. One of the things that helps me with this process is to read over various prayers of surrender by saints of past centuries. I have listed a prayer below by Francis Fenelon, a 16th Century priest who was one of the great spiritual voices of France. It is one of the prayers I am focusing on this year. I must admit, reading through this does not give me great pleasure, but it does allow the Holy Spirit to remind me of my inconsistencies.

Please remember that surrender and abandonment is not about “doing more for God”, but about allowing God to do a work in your heart so that you may be in sync with Him. As you read this prayer may the Holy Spirit give you a nudge toward a greater degree of surrender and abandonment.

Dear Lord, I desire to give myself completely to you. Give me the courage and strength to make this leap of faith. My Spirit longs for you. Strengthen my will and my reserve to surrender all of the compartments of my life to you. If I don’t have the strength to give you everything, then draw me by the sweetness of your love. Lord, I know that I am your child and I belong to you. I am horrified by thought that I belong to myself and to my passions! Help me find all my happiness in you, for there is no happiness outside of you.

Why am I afraid to break out of my chains? Do the things of this world mean more to me than you? Am I afraid to give myself to you? What a mistake! It is not even I who would give me to you, but you who would give yourself to me. Take my heart.

What a joy it is to be with you, to be quiet so that I might hear your voice! Feed me and teach me out of your depths. Oh God, you only make me love you. Why should I fear to give you everything and draw close to you? To be left to the world is more frightening than this. Your mercy can overcome any obstacle. I am unworthy of you, but I can become a miracle of your grace. (Francois De Fenelon 1651-1715)

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Radical Christianty

 

“Do not act like the other nations, who try to read their future in the stars. Do not be afraid of their predictions, even though other nations are terrified by them. Their ways are futile and foolish. They cut down a tree, and a craftsman carves an idol. They decorate it with gold and silver and then fasten it securely with hammer and nails so it won’t fall over. Their gods are like helpless scarecrows in a cucumber field! They cannot speak, and they need to be carried because they cannot walk.” (Jeremiah 10  New Living Translation)

The above verse is an account of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah telling Israel to turn from the false wooden and stone idols and return to Jehovah, the only true God.

When I read the accounts of the Israelites constant turning from the one true God and worshiping wooden and stone idols, my first response is “what’s wrong with these people?” Have they forgotten their rich history of God’s faithfulness? Have they erased the memory of His multiple, miraculous deliverance? How could they snub God for a wooden or stone idol?

However, when I think of our present day society, aren’t we guilty of a similar thing? No, we may not be erecting wooden and stone idols, but we are guilty of turning to other things that become our gods. Our hobbies, possessions or even our recreation can replace our affection and devotion to the supremacy of Christ in our lives.

The Christian life is not about how many times you attend church in a week, nor how many hours you spend in prayer and Bible study. Even though it may include those things, the Christian life is about personal intimacy. It’s about developing a continual and constant dependency on the sufficiency of Christ. It’s about abandonment and surrender to the supremacy of Christ in all things. It’s giving God permission to lead, guide and develop every aspect of our life.

Total surrender is not giving God 10% of your money, time and talents; it’s giving Him 100% control of all you have and all you are. It’s yielding everything to the Holy Spirit’s control. It’s metaphorically laying every aspect of your life at Jesus feet and acknowledging that all you are, all you have and all you will ever be is vested in Him.

You see, God’s point in our utter abandonment is for us to acknowledge that we are created for a purpose. We are not just a biological happenstance created to wander about on the earth. As committed followers of Christ, we become “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 4:20) We really do figure into God’s grand scheme of things. We are created for this moment in history to be a demonstration of what God is like to your world.

The Bottom Line

You may be thinking, “This is radical stuff.” Yep, you are correct; this is radical Christianity, designed by God to impact our cultural for eternity. Anything less could be a form of idolatry. Will you take the challenge to lay your life at Jesus feet and be a radical follower of Christ and change your world for eternity?

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” ( Jim Elliot, Martyred Missionary)