Mediocre Faith...

I have recently been studying Acts in my devotional times and astounded once again by the very thought of all the miraculous, radical and dangerous place the early Christian find themselves in. I love reading of the scrapes that Paul and his friends find themselves in with the political powers and authorities of the day. Those speak so strongly of a deep, pure faith that we are all searching for. A faith that believes so strongly in name and power of Jesus that they’re willing to lay down their life to join community that is built on that foundation. I am struck that people gave up all the possessions to join these crazy radical communities of head cases who went back into cites where people wanted to kill them to tell them of the love of Jesus until they believed. They put the message they had to proclaim, higher above everything else. I sometimes find myself looking around the Christian landscape and I am struck by a quote from Capon-Farrar “The good news is no longer good news, it is ok news. Christianity is no longer life-changing it is life enhancing. Jesus doesn’t changer people into wide eyed radicals but into nice people”. How true is this quote? How true is it in our own walk with Jesus? I think I would love to say it isn’t true in my walk with God that every time I spend time with Jesus I am struck by his love and am changed and transformed to live out this radical faith that I see in Acts but if I said that I would be lying. There is something in our human state that settles for so much less with God and we somehow justify this with him or rationalise it somehow. But I wonder why that I do that sometimes? I wonder what makes us settle for that when in the rest of our lives we always want more. Whether it’s more clothes or a better house or car. We always want the next technological item in the saga of an ever-increasing consumer driven culture. I am shocked about how wired in to this culture we all are and how hard it is to withdraw from this. Coming up to the time of lent I am struck by this becoming a theme for all our lives in the preparation for Easter. Preparing our hearts for real and radical sacrifice just as Jesus did.

That life over a wider-eyed radical is still on offer if we all just learn to tap into it…