Posts Tagged ‘david platt’

Is just a belief of Jesus enough for salvation?

Posted: January 30, 2015 in disciples life
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Since 2010 I have been studying the RED LETTERS with a deep and longing desire to know for sure what Jesus taught about being His disciple. There are so many messages out their today from a universalist view that we can live as we please to the greasy grace doctrines of all is forgiven so live life the way you choose after all Gods Grace covers it all. I know that I can do nothing whatsoever to earn my salvation yet at the same time I was haunted by the words, “depart from Me for I never knew you”.

The group of men I have been blessed to mentor/disciple and I are about to engage in David Platt’s study series from his book “Follow me. A Call to Die. A Call to Live. I have already read the book and much like Radical, I believe David does a good job at causing his readers to search the scriptures with regard to being a true disciples and not be found in the masses of deceived people, who think they are disciples. For those who only desire a comfortable, sacrifice free life, enjoying the pleasures of this world with no true desire to be ruled over, this book will anger you. For those of you who desire a deeper understanding into what it means to live the life of a true disciple of Jesus Christ, this book will help you on that road.

Below is an excerpt from the first chapter. Enjoy:

WHAT ABOUT BELIEF?

Amid this emphasis on the cost of following Jesus, you might wonder about passages in the Bible where it seems that salvation involves simple belief. Jesus tells Nicodemus that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Paul and Silas tell the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” According to the book of Romans, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Based on these passages, you might conclude that believing in Jesus is all that’s involved in becoming or being a Christian. This is absolutely true, but we must consider context in order to understand what the Bible means by belief. When Jesus calls Nicodemus to believe in him, he is calling Nicodemus to be born again— to begin an entirely new life devoted to following him. Likewise, when the Philippian jailer believes in Christ, he knows that he is joining a community of Christians who are being beaten, flogged, and imprisoned for their faith .

The cost of following Christ is clear.

In the same way, Paul tells the Roman Christians that to believe in the saving resurrection of Jesus from the dead is to confess the sovereign lordship of Jesus over their lives. In each of these verses (and scores of others like them), belief in Jesus for salvation involves far more than mere intellectual assent. After all, even demons “believe” that Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Son of God.  Such “belief” clearly doesn’t save, yet such “belief” is common across the world today. Just about every intoxicated person I meet on the street says he “believes” in Jesus.

Scores of people I meet around the world, including some Hindus, animists, and Muslims, profess some level of “belief” in Jesus. All kinds of halfhearted, world-loving church attenders confess “belief” in Christ. We can all profess publicly belief that we don’t possess personally, even ( or should I say especially) in the church. Hear the shouts of the damned in Matthew 7 as they cry, “Lord, Lord!” Jesus replies to them, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”  Clearly, people who claim to believe in Jesus are not assured eternity in heaven. On the contrary, only those who obey Jesus will enter his Kingdom.

As soon as I write that, you may perk up and ask, “David, did you just say that works are involved in our salvation?” In response to that question, I want to be clear: that is not what I am saying. Instead, it’s what Jesus is saying. Now I want to be very careful here, because we could begin to twist the gospel into something it’s not. Jesus is not saying that our works are the basis for our salvation. The grace of God is the only basis of our salvation— a truth we will explore further in the next chapter. But in our rush to defend grace, we cannot overlook the obvious in what Jesus is saying here (and in many other places as well): only those who are obedient to the words of Christ will enter the Kingdom of Christ. If our lives do not reflect the fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually followers of Jesus in the first place.

DANGEROUSLY DECEIVED

Consider a recent study which found that four out of five Americans identify themselves as Christians. In this group of self-proclaimed Christians, less than half of them are involved in church on a weekly basis. Less than half of them actually believe the Bible is accurate, and the overwhelming majority of them don’t have a biblical view of the world around them.

The pollsters went even deeper, though, to identify men and women who are described as “born-again Christians” (as if there is any other kind). These are people who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus and who believe they will go to heaven because they have accepted Jesus as their Savior. According to the research, almost half of Americans are “born-again Christians.” But out of this group of “born-again Christians,” researchers found that their beliefs and lifestyles are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the world around them.

Many of these “born-again Christians” believe that their works can earn them a place in heaven, others think that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, some believe Jesus sinned while he was on earth, and an ever-increasing number of “born-again Christians” describe themselves as only marginally committed to Jesus.  Many people have used this data to conclude that Christians are really not that different from the rest of the world. But I don’t think this interpretation of the research is accurate. I think the one thing that is abundantly clear from these statistics is that there are a whole lot of people in the world who think they are Christians but are not.

There are a whole lot of people who think that they’ve been born again, but they are dangerously deceived. Imagine you and I set up a meeting for lunch at a restaurant, and you arrive before I do. You wait and wait and wait, but thirty minutes later, I still haven’t arrived. When I finally show up, completely out of breath, I say to you, “I’m so sorry I’m late. When I was driving over here, my car had a flat tire, and I pulled over on the side of the interstate to fix it. While I was fixing it, I accidentally stepped into the road, and a Mack truck going about seventy miles per hour suddenly hit me head-on. It hurt, but I picked myself up, finished putting the spare tire on the car, and drove over here.” If this were the story I shared, you would know I was either deliberately lying or completely deceived. Why? Because if someone gets hit by a Mack truck going seventy miles per hour, that person is going to look very different than he did before!

In light of this, I feel like I’m on pretty safe ground in assuming that once people truly come face-to-face with Jesus, the God of the universe in the flesh, and Jesus reaches down into the depth of their hearts, saves their souls from the clutches of sin, and transforms their lives to follow him, they are going to look different. Very different. People who claim to be Christians while their lives look no different from the rest of the world are clearly not Christians. Such deception is not just evident in the United States; it’s prevalent around the world. As I was praying through the countries of the world recently, I came across Jamaica, a country that is supposedly almost 100 percent Christian. The prayer guide I use made this statement about Jamaica: “It enjoys one of the world’s highest number of churches per square mile, but the majority of self-proclaimed Christians in Jamaica neither attend church nor lead a Christian life.”

As I read this, my heart was overcome by the unavoidable conclusion that multitudes of men and women in Jamaica think they are Christians when they are not. They join scores of people in countries around the world who call themselves Christians yet don’t follow Christ. Spiritual deception is dangerous— and damning. Any one of us can fool ourselves. We are sinful creatures, biased in our own favor, prone to assume that we are something when we are not. The Bible says that the god of this world (Satan) is blinding the minds of unbelievers to keep them from knowing Christ   Couldn’t it be that one of the ways the devil is doing this is by deceiving people into believing they are Christians when they are not?

Platt, David (2013-02-05). Follow Me: A Call to Die.  A Call to Live.

Is the “sinner’s prayer” “superstitious.”

Posted: April 5, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, Parents, teaching, wilderness
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It was a three-minute video clip that was shared across the evangelical community. In it, Pastor David Platt famously called the “sinner’s prayer” “superstitious.” A few months later, he still finds himself explaining the heart behind that message.

“I believe we simply need to be as biblical as possible (2 Timothy 2:15). Do I believe it is ‘wrong’ for someone to pray a ‘prayer of salvation’? Certainly not,” Platt maintained in a blog post this week.

The 33-year-old pastor, who leads The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., sparked debate earlier this year when he told attendees at the Verge Conference that there is “no such superstitious prayer in the New Testament,” referring to the popular “sinner’s prayer.”

“I’m convinced many people in our churches are just simply missing the life of Christ and a lot of it has to do with what we’ve sold them as the Gospel, i.e. ‘pray this prayer, accept Jesus into your heart, invite Christ into your life,'” he said. “It’s modern evangelism built on sinking sand and it runs the risk of disillusioning millions of souls.”

While some agreed with him, others couldn’t avoid what they saw as the underpinnings of his remarks – Calvinism. Some thought Platt voiced opposition to the “sinner’s prayer” because as a Calvinist, he didn’t want the hopeless unelect to think they are saved through a simple prayer.

He pushed back in his recent blog post, stating that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
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“Any cautions I have expressed with a ‘sinner’s prayer’ have absolutely nothing directly to do with the doctrine of election, and I definitively don’t believe that certain people ‘actually have no chance for life in Christ,'” the Southern Baptist pastor clarified. “Instead, my comments about the ‘sinner’s prayer’ have been deeply motivated by a concern for authentic conversion and regenerate church membership – doctrines which many Calvinists and non-Calvinists, as well as a variety of Christians in between, would rightly value.”

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, came to Platt’s defense on Thursday. While noting that Platt could have chosen a better word other than “superstitious” in his talk, Akin said he shared his concern about poor gospel presentations and false professions.
But that doesn’t mean he’s against the “sinner’s prayer.”

“I want it to be known that I shepherded all of my sons in praying a ‘sinner’s prayer’ as an expression of the work of God in their hearts as they repented of their sin and placed their trust in Christ alone for salvation,” Akin stated. “I have also preached more than a dozen graduation messages and in each and every one I have shared the gospel, invited people to receive Christ, and even helped them as they surrender their lives to Christ by leading them in a ‘sinner’s prayer.’

“Handled carefully and wisely, I gladly invite people to repent of sin, trust in Christ, and surrender their lives to Him. David and I, I am quite certain, are in 100% agreement with one another on the issue.”
Platt addressed his controversial statements during the Southern Baptist Convention’s Pastors Conference in New Orleans last week.

“In my youth, I know that I am prone not to be careful with my words (particularly when they can become three-minute youtube clips!), so I want to be very careful with my words today,” he said in his introduction.
He went to the New Testament book of John to show evidence of devout followers of Jesus who were not born-again.
John 2:23-24 states: “Many trusted in his name … Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them.”
“Clearly, from the beginning of the gospel of John – this gospel that revolves around the necessity and centrality of belief in Christ – John makes clear to us that there is a kind of belief, a kind of faith, that does not save,” Platt explained.

“Is it possible for people to say they believe in Jesus, to say they have accepted Jesus, to say that they have received Jesus, but they are not saved and will not enter the kingdom of heaven? Is that possible? Absolutely, it’s possible. It’s not just possible; it is probable.”

Platt, who has a passion for global missions, expressed concern that there are millions of people who are being deceived to thinking they’re saved when they’re not because of a prayer they prayed or decision they made years ago.
At the same time, he made it clear that praying a prayer or making a decision aren’t in themselves bad. In fact, that’s how many believers called out to Christ and became “justified” through faith in Jesus.
But the question, he said, is: “What kind of faith are we calling people to?”

“In a day of rampant easy-believism that creates cultural Christians who do not know Christ, who have never counted the cost of following Christ, we must be biblically clear about saving faith, lest any of us lead people down a very dangerous and potentially damning road of spiritual deception.”

True, saving faith, the Alabama pastor explained, requires first understanding man’s condition before God – that they are dead in sin.

“We cannot dumb it down,” he stressed. “We are morally evil.”
To be born-again, one must repent – turn from sin and self – and believe – “trust in Jesus as the Savior who died for us and the Lord who rules over us.”

“We tell men and women, boys and girls everywhere: repent and believe in Christ. Whether we say, ‘Pray this prayer after me,’ is not the issue,” Platt highlighted. “The issue is that together we say, ‘By the grace of God in the cross of Christ, turn from yourself and trust in Jesus. Come from darkness to light. Come from death to life.’
“Now we can debate all day long how these words are used in what senses, but the testimony of Scripture is absolutely, fundamentally clear: God loves the world, and everyone in the world who trusts in Him will be saved.”
And those who are truly saved, he added, will be compelled to boldly preach the Gospel. They don’t have to be cajoled to do it.

Amid debate on the “sinner’s prayer,” Southern Baptists chose to adopt a resolution this month affirming the prayer as “a biblical expression of repentance and faith.”
Notably, Platt voted for the resolution.

“It was encouraging to see pastors and leaders together say that we need to be wise in the way we lead people to Christ, but such wisdom doesn’t necessarily warrant that everyone must throw out a ‘sinner’s prayer’ altogether,” he stated.

By Lillian Kwon , Christian Post Reporter

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/david-platt-still-addressing-controversy-over-sinners-prayer-remarks-77462/#BX1QdE6gMYrkVqXG.99

The Cost of Discipleship

Posted: November 20, 2012 in disciples life, teaching, wilderness
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This is where we come face to face with a dangerous reality. We do have to give up everything we have to follow Jesus. We do have to love him in a way that makes our closest relationships in this world look like hate. And it is entirely possible that he will tell us to sell everything we have and give it to the poor.

… You know that in the end you are not really giving away anything at all. Instead you are gaining. Yes, you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way. … Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for.

This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something — someone — worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of 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.

– David Platt

So you have a better view than the Lord?

Posted: September 6, 2012 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (6:34)

Why is it that we like to use verses that encourage us yet the ones that challenge we close the Bible and put it back on the shelf? Jesus is plainly here talking about not worrying about tomorrow yet I constant hear Christians” speaking with a spirit of fear in regard to the future.

Let’s take it to another level, now speaking to Christian leaders, why do we set an agenda for the Church? Why do we establish monthly, annual and annual topics and agenda’s?

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:28-34)

Oswald Chambers said in light of these passages:

“The great word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon. Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God.’ We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritually-minded of us–‘But I must live; I must make so much money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.’ The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly related to God first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things.

I wonder about what Christian pastors and teachers are thinking when the teach the Bible with their lips, yet their lives are not a demonstration of the very words they are speaking.

I listened as men and women establish ministries and they set an
agenda and then say “God gave this to me”.

Really?

Because all through the Bible I read if how God gave his generals orders for the task right in front of them;

Abraham, get up and go and he went, yet all through Abrahams life God gave him instructions for the next task at hand…. David you are anointed King of Israel….yet at every battle David had to ask the Father for His plans for the Lord only gave Him the plans for the battle in front of Him. Jesus to the Apostles “go and tarry”
Yet we speak as though God sees no need for us to have faith, because He is like a fortune teller and show us from start to finish.

James said:
“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what [shall be] on the morrow. For what [is] your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye [ought] to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth [it] not, to him it is sin.”

No wonder the world see’s the Church but as a bunch of hypocrites for we profess the scriptures yet we do not live what we are speaking. Or is it because we have been deceived and bought into the Americanized version of the Gospel message that has toned it down and almost completely erased the radical call of Jesus Christ because it is to offensive?

I like what David Platt says in his book “Radical – Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream” – “We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is biblical.”

We make our agenda and then cry out to God to show up and when He does not we act like spoiled little children who didn’t get their way and some go as far as opening the door to the father of lies to come and convince them that God the Father let them down.

If we are truly radical disciples of Jesus Christ then we need to radically cross the line of simply professing the Word to the life that lives it. We need to see a radical transformation of Church government back to the foundational teachings of our Lord and His disciples as written in the Word. We need to stop promoting people so quickly because we see that they may have a gift. We need to protect the flock and make sure we do not send out immature Christians to be their fathers and mothers in the faith as their immaturity can turn the new born Christian away from the Faith.

So many pastors are tired and worn out (because they do not see the need of true Biblical elders in place i the Church) that they grab the first one that looks promising not realizing that they may have just welcomed an Ismael into their leadership. Because of this we have seen Church split after Church split.For such immaturity leads to division, strife, envy and jealousy and once they’ve been placed in a position of leadership they will never step down without and all out brawl, most of the time turning “their” followers against the leadership of the Church. Paul warns us and lays out the qualifications for leaders in the Church.

‘Jesus never said we could slice and dice His Gospel and still be His disciples in fact He went so far as to say if we obey ALL His commands we can be His disciple.

Its time to stop playing Church according to mans rules – its time to get back to the blue print that the Father has given us in His Word.

Lets get radical –lets not just preach the Bible – lets be Bible!!!

It’s Time to take it to the Extreme Level of Discipleship

Posted: August 29, 2012 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, Prophetic, teaching, wilderness
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Just about 3 years ago, after spending several months in the Book of Act’s and having read David Platt’s; Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream , Holy Ghost brought me to a place of Holy conviction because my life was not in line with what the Bible describes as a true disciples of Jesus Christ. During this time of repentance and seeking the truth according to the scriptures and not those of men, I made this declaration to my Savior, Lord, King and Master Jesus Christ: “I spent the first 45 years of my life trying to startle the fence between the world and the Kingdom. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to be radical.” When we study the Bible and the great movements of God we find that All history shapers are radical, and I believe it’s time for believers everywhere to take on this attribute.

There have been times during this period that I have lost friendships, been called an outsider, been scorned by the very leaders I had looked up to. It has cost my family fellowshipping with those we had attended Church with for years. There has been a cost and I believe there will continue to be a cost. But I can not remain silent where I see error. I can not stand by and watch good hearted people be drawn to a powerless gospel that will lead them to Hell, when we have been giving the authority to walk in the power of Holy Ghost and release the True Gospel of Jesus Christ, just as He and His disciples taught and lived it.

I adhere to the teachings of Christ, having read and continue in the reading od the thoughts and religion recipes of man. I can not but weigh all things against the Word of God. That which does not line up with His Word, I throw out and sound the alarm that others do not fall into its evil religious trap.

In the Word I read the following commands of the Lord that can not be watered down nor ignored by those who desire to be His true disciples;

The Lord called us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. That’s radical.

Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. That’s radical.

Our Lord God said we are to preach the gospel to every person on earth and turn all nations into His followers. That’s radical.
So the question at hand is “What does it really mean to be radical servant of God today according to the doctrines of Jesus Christ? “A true radical is one who defies the whims of his times and calls people back to root realities and root causes.

To be honest, the Church is not impacting the world in the manner Jesus calls us to. We have built empires unto men, schools that are tainted with worldly philosophies. Today more than ever before the greatest need in the body of Christ is for radical followers of Jesus Christ who are anchored in:

• truth, not emotional, worldly and philosophical based thoughts of man
• grace, not legalistic religion
• faith, not skepticism
• discipline, not indolence
• history, not fads
• hope, not despair.

So we truly see that yes, the greatest need in the Church today is the need for radical disciples of Jesus Christ who are anchored in Christ and the assurance of His global glory. “We who have fled to Him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to His promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls” (Heb. 6:18-19, NLT).

I am tired of the religion being taught in our Churches today, tired of the seeker friendly message, the feel good messages and the focus on what we can get out of following God rather than what God can produce through us as we line up obediently to what His Word calls us to be. I want to be a truly radical follower of Jesus: rooted in Him, extremely in love with Him, extremely devoted to Him and His cause. The acrostic below spells out for me the components of a radical life fully given over to Jesus:

Revelation. True radicals live by revelation drawn from intimacy with Jesus.

Anointing. True radicals are anointed by the Holy Spirit.

Discipline. True radicals retain that anointing by practicing historic Christian disciplines.

Integrity. True radicals are those whose public persona is matched by private purity.

Courage. True radicals follow the truth, speak the truth and call people to the truth.

Anchored. True radicals are anchored in history and hope; in the Word and the Spirit.

Love. True radicals are driven by the love of God at work in them by the Holy Spirit.

One theologian observed that the great revolutions in the history of Christianity do not occur by discovering something new. Great revolutions happen, he stated, when someone takes radically something that has always been there. Martin Luther took the simple gospel message of justification by faith radically. John Wesley took the simple message of biblical holiness radically. William Seymour took a present-tense encounter with the Holy Spirit radically. There are countless, known names as well as the nameless servants of the Lord who have over the past 2000 plus years as well as in our day, in our day take the Masters teaching in regard ministering “to the least of these” radically.

Brothers & sisters I believe with all my heart that this is the day for us to take Christ’s Great Commission radically. I believe it is the hour for us to go forth with radical faith, radical commitment and radical love and usher in His second coming by making disciples of all nations. We can’t start a revolution by being worldly and full of man made religious doctrines.

Let’s get radical!

My take: Why my church rebelled against the American Dream

Posted: June 15, 2012 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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Editor’s Note: David Platt, Ph.D., is the author of the New York Times bestseller Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream and is senior pastor of the 4,000-member Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama.

By David Platt, Special to CNN

We American Christians have a way of taking the Jesus of the Bible and twisting him into a version of Jesus that we are more comfortable with.

A nice middle-class American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism and would never call us to give away everything we have. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts.

A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes, and who for that matter wants us to avoid danger altogether. A Jesus who brings comfort and prosperity to us as we live out our Christian spin on the American Dream.

But lately I’ve begun to have hope that the situation is changing.

The 20th-century historian who coined the term “American Dream,” James Truslow Adams, defined it as “a dream… in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are.”

But many of us are realizing that Jesus has different priorities. Instead of congratulating us on our self-fulfillment, he confronts us with our inability to accomplish anything of value apart from God. Instead of wanting us to be recognized by others, he beckons us to die to ourselves and seek above all the glory of God.

In my own faith family, the Church at Brook Hills, we have tried to get out from under the American Dream mindset and start living and serving differently.

Like many other large American churches, we had a multimillion-dollar campus and plans to make it even larger to house programs that would cater to our own desires. But then we started looking at the world we live in.

It’s a world where 26,000 children die every day of starvation or a preventable disease. A world where billions live in situations of such grinding poverty that an American middle-class neighborhood looks like Beverly Hills by comparison. A world where more than a billion people have never even heard the name Jesus. So we asked ourselves, “What are we spending our time and money on that is less important than meeting these needs?” And that’s when things started to change.

First we gave away our entire surplus fund – $500,000 – through partnerships with churches in India, where 41 percent of the world’s poor live. Then we trimmed another $1.5 million from our budget and used the savings to build wells, improve education, provide medical care and share the gospel in impoverished places around the world. Literally hundreds of church members have gone overseas temporarily or permanently to serve in such places.

And it’s not just distant needs we’re trying to meet. It’s also needs near at hand.

One day I called up the Department of Human Resources in Shelby County, Alabama, where our church is located, and asked, “How many families would you need in order to take care of all the foster and adoption needs that we have in our county?”

The woman I was talking to laughed.

I said, “No, really, if a miracle were to take place, how many families would be sufficient to cover all the different needs you have?”

She replied, “It would be a miracle if we had 150 more families.”

When I shared this conversation with our church, over 160 families signed up to help with foster care and adoption. We don’t want even one child in our county to be without a loving home. It’s not the way of the American Dream. It doesn’t add to our comfort, prosperity, or ease. But we are discovering the indescribable joy of sacrificial love for others, and along the way we are learning more about the inexpressible wonder of God’s sacrificial love for us.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my country and I couldn’t be more grateful for its hard-won freedoms. The challenge before we American Christians, as I see it, is to use the freedoms, resources, and opportunities at our disposal while making sure not to embrace values and assumptions that contradict what God has said in the Bible.

I believe God has a dream for people today. It’s just not the same as the American Dream.

I believe God is saying to us that real success is found in radical sacrifice. That ultimate satisfaction is found not in making much of ourselves but in making much of him. That the purpose of our lives transcends the country and culture in which we live. That meaning is found in community, not individualism. That joy is found in generosity, not materialism. And that Jesus is a reward worth risking everything for.

Indeed, the gospel compels us to live for the glory of God in a world of urgent spiritual and physical need, and this is a dream worth giving our lives to pursue.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/23/my-take-why-my-church-rebelled-against-the-american-dream/

“I believe that David Platt is another Radical disciple of Jesus in our day, yet Christ calls each of us to be as radical as the disciples of the Bible” ` Radicaldisciples blog founder & Author Russ Welch