Purposeful life with Christ

Recently I re-read David Platts Radical and I was instantly challenged like I hadn't been before about how many times I've focused on attaining materialistic pleasure and the desires of the flesh. I was shocked at how deep my sin went and it didn't take much introspective searching to see that I'd offended God just as the vilest offender and murderer could.

Now as a student of the Word I understand that God does not judge sins differently, but that He judges all sins impartially and equally because He sees all sin as rebellion against Him and His will for our lives. I though as a human judge sin differently and in my mind I am right, but no I am never right when judging sin because I have no authority to judge the sins of man. You may be thinking I'm chasing a rabbit right now, but as every good Baptist preacher does I have a point to this. The focus of David Platts book was to challenge the Christian in the church and force him/her to search within their hearts and discover how to follow Gods will and live a life worthy of the calling God ordained them with. The point I'm making is that I have begun to judge my sins and I am no more worthy of salvation than anyone including the murder, thief, and adulterer, but God has granted me grace and salvation through Christ Jesus. Now after searching my own life and looking at my own walk with Christ Jesus I have realized I'm severely lacking in my prayer life, in my giving of tithes and time, and in making disciples.

To amend this and to live my life as Christ has commanded me to and to honor the sacrifice that He willingly gave Himself up to be for me I am taking the "Radical Experiment"that Platt speaks of in his book:

The Radical Experiment

1. Read through the entire Word
2. Commitment your life to a multiplying community
3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose
4. Spend your time in another context

Now I will do all these things and challenge each and every one of you to do so as well.
Reading through the Word in a year is easy, now reading it in a year twice is going to be harder, but I feel like God demands my time and His Word deserves to be read thoroughly and discerningly. My life is committed to a multiplying community right now through FBC Fayetteville, but in the summer I will be starting a new season of life with pursuing my passion to plant churches and share the Gospel by working with Cross Church and the staff that Dr. Floyd has brought together. This will be challenging for me, leaving my home church that has poured into me and loved on me since my freshman year of college, but God has other plans for my life and I must follow His call. Sacrificing my money for a specific purpose is hard as a post-college bachelor, but one thing I do love doing is mentoring and discipling younger men and youth through meeting with them and sharing life with them. I do this a lot by grabbing dinner with guys, getting coffee, cooking out, and just doing life. Now all of that requires money and I give it generously for their betterment and for the betterment of my own spirit. Spending time in another context is very easy for me because I do love serving in the mission field and I do enjoy giving up weeks upon weeks to share the Gospel with an unreached people group or just pouring into college students in China. I have a huge passion for missions that cannot be quenched by just one week out of the year. It has to be continually fed by constant missional living and constant reliance on God.

That's the challenge and in a year you and I both will be more blessed than we possibly could have imagined beforehand.

God bless,

James