Radical Read Along Chapter 3 – Losing Ourselves

I was enthralled with this weeks reading just like all of the others, but I think the reason why I was enthralled is God wanted me to be alert for something that required a radical change in my schedule and in myself.  What I am talking about is an experience that I will share below:

Sunday morning, I was in my normal routine except I did make a couple changes already.  I had decided to wake up a bit earlier than I did to go for a run.  This was my first run in a long time.  I prayed to God to get me through this radical physical effort that I was about to undergo that morning.  I threw on the headphones with some worship music and fired up the C25K program on my phone.  God got me through the run, but the big change was yet to come.

Radical Read Along – Chapter 2 – Giving Your ALL for Him.

I think, for me, Chapter 2 of David Platt’s Radical is really about separating yourself from the world and concentrating on God. I loved the stories about the house Church and the Secret Church.  I love the idea of holding a “secret church” service.  Removing all of the creature comforts of the modern day Church and go into a room without electric or air conditioning and just have your Bible and your fellow Christians and studying about God.  Seriously studying him and concentrating on him and only him.  Makes me just go wow. Then I think of the story of the gospel and how wrong a lot of us get this.  Jesus wasn’t scared of the nails being driven into his palms.  He was scared of having God’s wrath poured out on him for our sins.  Wow….even the son of God was concerned about this to the point of being on his knees praying to God and sweating blood.  What amazes me most is why he even had to go through with this.  It;’s my fault.  It’s all of our faults.  We’re not worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Without him, we can’t get through this life. To cap this weeks reading off, I have to look to my friend and pastor, Rob Faught and his wife Leah.  They told their story of their trip to Belize.  Leah told the story of a mother who traveled 3 hours in the morning on a bus with 3 kids just so they can hear his word.  Now in Belize, it is hot and humid just like Marla’s Cambodia.  They were always drinking bottled water because the water in Belize was not safe for us Americans to drink.  One of the kids asked her for a drink of water and because she was afraid she wouldn’t know when they would get more water, she said no.  They got ready to leave and got in the van to ride back to camp and as they got in the van, the leader of the group asked if anyone needed to get water at the store.  Leah just realized she should have gave this child her water.  Leah and her husband Rob sacrificed so much so they could go and serve God in Belize.  Even as radical as that sounds, you can always go further.

Radical Read Along – Chapter 1 – Wow…this IS Radical

God has been working on me for sometime to do something with Gabe Taviano.  He leads a local group of Christians here called the Digital Disciples.  A group of tech enthusiast who also happen to be Christians.  I have always wanted to join their monthly gatherings, but with the timing of getting out of work as well as getting from the south side of Columbus to the northwest side in time for a 6 PM gathering, it’s a pretty tall order.  Maybe some day I’ll make it.  Anyway, that isn’t what this post is about.  Gabe posted on Facebook about his wife, Marla, leading a read along of David Platt’s Radical – Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.  Gabe said there were only three other men participating, at the time, so I prayed about it and felt God saying to do it.

In the last year we had studied in our small group at Church at the low numbers of men in leadership positions in different ministries.  In my prayer about this reading, I just felt God saying I want to prepare you for your next step.  This is God’s way of helping me prepare for what he has in store for me.  I still do not know what that is, but I hope to at least grow through this reading.  So, from here on out are my thoughts on Chapter One of Radical.