Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

First, I have nothing but great regard for Pastor and bestselling author David Platt. Not only is he quite "Radical" in how he ministers to the people who attend his church, but he is also "Radical" in his thinking and writing. And his first book titled "Radical" is well..."Radical!"In his book Radical Pastor Platt writes about a whole new level of Christian thinking and living...the type of Christian thinking and living that is not often seen practiced yet in America. His book is a clarion call to Christians to be radically different...so different that people in our world will take notice of who we are and what we believe.In Chapter 1 of his book titled "Someone Worth Losing Everything For" author Platt goes right for our spiritual jugular vein and challenges us as his reader to `radical abandonment" to follow Jesus Christ. No going for a small spiritual vein in the first chapter of his book. No, he goes right to the jugular vein and confronts us with the reality that since Christ let his blood flow for us and our eternal salvation we should let our lives flow in the here and now present world as divinely appointed messengers of the "Biblical Gospel." And he drives home his point about our loving Someone Worth Losing Everything For from a personal life-transforming experience he had meeting with persecuted believers in a secret house church in Asia to study the Word of God, pray and fellowship. To those precious saints to follow Christ was a radical call to be willing to literally lose everything including their lives for Jesus Christ and the sake of living out and sharing the Biblical Gospel. This is a type of radical commitment to Christ that is far removed from what many so called professing Christians practice in America today.In Chapter 2, "Too Hungry For Words," he shares how he ministered to people in a secret house church in Asia, which for him and all in attendance was a dangerous situation, and how "hungry' the people were for the Lord and his Word and that the Lord and his Word was enough for them. He shares about how he tried an experiment at his church one Friday night called "Secret Church" where everything that most mega-church Christians hold dear was taken away from them and all they would do is read and study the Word of God and pray for six hours - from six PM until Midnight...and the first time they did it they had over a thousand people show up. He relates that when they do it now they have to take reservations to be able to properly accommodate the members of the church who attend. He writes that's what happens when discover the truth and beauty of the gospel. I wonder in my heart is if he is not preparing his people for what one day just might be the real thing in our country...having to meet secretly to worship God and study his Word under the threat of losing everything including our lives. "Secret church," think about that idea for a while if you will.In Chapter 3 he addresses the issue of "Beginning At The End of Ourselves." That's paradoxical isn't it? To truly find yourself, the `You" that God has recreated you spiritually to be; you have to lose yourself in him to gain what truly matters most. He shares about the greatness of our God and his work in our lives and how we desperately need to rely on him and his power to be who God wants us to be and accomplish what he wants us to do. Author Platt shares appropriate Scripture passages to "back up" what he is writing as well as personal stories throughout the book to reveal to us as the reader of his book what it looks like to live the "radical" kind of life that Christ has called us to live. This is so we can fulfill the "global" purposes of God as individuals and also as we minister through our own Multiplying Community of believers. To live radically for Christ not only affects and involves each and every one of us on a personal level, but as author Platt informs us, it also affects and involves us on a community level as part of a community of believers.It is in Chapter 6 that he asks an uncomfortable and unsettling question, "How Much Is Enough?" In this chapter he addresses the issue of wealth, of worldwide poverty, and how we then are to live as disciples of Christ in light of the great and many needs that exist in our world. Author Platt gets very personal in this chapter and strikes at a nerve that for many Westernized Post Modern Christians causes them to feel very uncomfortable and nervous. But the question needed to be asks and needs to be asked over and over again for us as believers as we live in the land of plenty and abundance while millions of people worldwide live in poverty...hungry and without the barest of necessities of life. So, do we really need all the stuff or could we give much of what we have away in this world knowing that we are heading for a far better world one day where we will want and suffer no more. He shares a true story from the life of John Wesley about a purchase he once made for his apartment. And what a sobering story it is.Chapter 7 is a clarion call to action for us as believers...to get going places and doing things in the service of God AND author Platt does not see this as an option for us to consider but rather as something we should want to do and must do to fulfill the Great Commission. Getting going for God and being used by him to be a part of his global plan of reaching people from all nations and all races with the Gospel is why as author Platt writes, "Going Is Urgent, Not Optional." For all the number crunchers and people in America who like to always count the cost of everything and evaluate the risk to reward ratio in everything they do, Pastor Platt candidly shares the Risk And Reward Of Embracing and Living The Radical Life in Chapter 8. He provides us with some good examples to consider such as Jim Elliot who died trying to minister to an Indian tribe in South America, or John Paton, David Brainerd and others who risked it all to ultimately gain it all when they safely arrived at Heaven's golden shores. And in Chapter 9 he concludes his book with the "Radical Experiment;" that is taking one year of our life to be "radically" turned upside down. It is a challenge to think and live differently. He refers to such practical steps as praying for the world, reading through the Word, sacrificing what we don't need so others in real need can have what they require to survive. And for people who need something in writing to make a commitment real in their life he provides a "Radical Experiment" commitment form the reader can complete to remind them of their promise or commitment to live their life for Jesus in a whole new and "Radical" way.If you are no longer satisfied with just the spiritual status quo in your life and you want to be totally and "Radically' challenged and changed to live life as Jesus Christ would have you live it for him, then purchase a copy of this book. Read it, pray fervently and passionately about what you have read and how as a result YOU are going to join the "Radical" movement to be part of the Kingdom of God's movers and shakers for the glory of God and his Son Jesus Christ here on earth beginning just as soon as you finish reading the book.I received a complementary copy of Radical from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Company for reviewing it.

For anyone who has commented saying that this book just produces "guilt" or "faith=works(which it does not)", here are some questions and quotes from David from an interview (read the whole interview here [...] :What role does the cross play in the biblical vision of radical living?"First and foremost, the cross makes radical living possible. We live only because Christ died. In His death and resurrection, we have been reconciled to God and clothed in the righteousness of Christ. This is the spring from which radical living flows. Because of the cross, we are dead to our sin and dead to ourselves. Christ is our life, our joy, our satisfaction, and our delight. The cross delivers us from our attachments to and affections for the things of this world, and the cross frees us to give our lives in radical abandonment to the will of Christ for the glory of Christ in all nations.The cross also reminds us that the radical life is not a life of legalism, but a life of love. Some will take the idea of radical obedience to Christ and twist it into a measure by which we are approved by God. The more radical we are, we will tend to think, the more accepted we will be before God. But the cross reminds us that God's pleasure in us is not based on our performance for Him. There is nothing we can do, no matter how radical we might be, to earn favor before God. God's pleasure in us is based solely on Christ's performance for us on the cross. So the cross reminds us that the radical life can never be the legalistic life. Instead, the cross compels us to a life of love. As sinners once dead in our transgressions with nothing in us to draw Christ to us, He saw us in our need and gave His life for us. And so now we see others in their need--spiritually, billions who are without Christ, including thousands of people groups who haven't even heard of the cross--and physically, masses who are starving and suffering--and we give our lives so that they might know the Christ of the cross. The radical life is uniquely and completely cross-driven."-D. PlattHow would you counsel folks who feel a constant low-grade sense of guilt that they are always failing the Lord and never doing enough?"This is a great question, and it's one of my greatest concerns even in writing this particular book. The last thing I want to do is leave readers overwhelmed by guilt, constantly wondering, "When I am going to be radical enough? What do I need to do, how do I need to give, or where do I need to go in order to do enough for God?" These are extremely unhealthy questions, for the reality with which the Gospel confronts us is that we'll never be able to do enough. No matter what we do, even if we sell all of our possessions, give to the poor, and move to the most dangerous country in the world, we cannot do enough to be accepted before God or approved by God. The beauty of the Gospel is that Christ is alone is able to do enough. He alone is able to keep the law and commands of God, and He has done it. Indeed, He has been faithful enough, generous enough, compassionate enough, etc. As a result, the starting point of the radical life is death to self, death to every attempt to do enough before God, and trust in Christ, the One who has lived the radical life on our behalf.The beauty now is that when we trust in Christ to be our righteousness, we are free to obey from a totally different position. In Christ, we have been declared "not guilty" before God. As a result, we no longer live from a position of guilt, but from a position of righteousness. And not only have we been declared righteous in Christ (as if this were not enough!), but He has given us His Spirit, and He lives in us to enable us at every single moment to live according to the commands which He has given us. As Christians, we now find ourselves free from guilt and driven by grace.In addition to all this, guilt is ultimately an unbearable burden and an unsustainable motivator. We may change our ways for a short time based on guilt, but real, true, radical life change will not happen until we trust in the Gospel.So my encouragement to anyone who struggles with a low-grade sense of guilt, wondering if they are ever doing enough, would be to realize that they can never do enough . . . and then to rejoice in the reality that Christ has done enough for them. Then, whenever they are confronted with sin or shortcomings, I would encourage them to trust in Christ, to rest in His righteousness, and to ask Him to produce the fruit of a radical Gospel in their lives. This alone will sustain radical, life-changing, world-impacting obedience for the glory of God in all nations."-David Platt