Heart Tracks - Radical Life

"I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning." Luke 12:49

I just finished an article by a man named John Burton who shared three points from a sermon he'd recently preached. In it, he challenged his listeners to live out these points in all aspects of their lives. They were first, to embrace radical holiness. Second, to engage in fervent intercession, and third, to impact their culture with truth. These things spoke directly to my heart. Do they speak to yours?

To embrace radical holiness. What does this mean to you? Certainly it is something far beyond rule keeping, and abstaining from all kinds of outwardly "sinful" behavior. To embrace a radically holy lifestyle is to embrace the very heart and mind of Christ. God said we are to be holy and He is holy. We are to love as He loves, give as He gives, forgive as He forgives. Embracing radical holiness means we live drenched in His presence. We live at His feet as He reigns in our hearts. As I saw it put, Jesus is in all, as all, for all. When this is our reality, true holiness of heart and life is our reality as well. He flows freely through and out of us. Darkness has no place because we're always running into His Light. We fully embrace a lifestyle of radical holiness because we fully embrace Him. Is such a lifestyle yours and mine?

To engage in fervent intercession is to be engaged in a prayer life that looks like His. His Word says that Christ lives to make intercession for His people. Does our prayer life look anything like His? How much of our "intercession" has as its "goal" the advancement of our own well being, our own agendas? To what level do we intercede for His Church, for a lost world, a lost culture, a lost way? If you "go to church" this week, how much intercession will have taken place in your prayer life for that church, your pastor, and the ministry and mission of both. We are a culture of consumers, and that culture has taken hold of the heart of the church. Has it taken hold of yours? Where are your prayer burdens found? How far outside the circle of you and your family do they go? Read John 17, and see how Jesus prayed for those who were His, and who would be His one day. How much does our prayer life look like this? How far from that prayer life are we?

Last, are we impacting our culture with His Truth? I have seen recent article where noteworthy "believers" have been asked point blank questions about current cultural issues that are spoken to directly in Scripture. Issues that are more and more being found culturally acceptable but condemned as sin in His Word. Into all of this, the Church must speak His Truth, all the while knowing that His Truth will not be acceptable to the majority. All the while knowing that there will be price to pay for it. No, we do not speak it in anger, but in love. We speak it as an invite into His Truth, and all the freedom that comes with it. And we do not just speak His Truth into the culture of the world, but into the culture of the Church as well. Doing this will likely bring far more of a negative response than doing so with the world. Francis Chan said to the congregation of the church he pastored that the hardest place he found to preach the whole Word of God was in his own fellowship. It was there that he found the most resistance....It's popular to say today that the church has to be relevant to its culture. We are only relevant to that culture when we speak and preach His Truth into it. Anything less renders us irrelevant. How relevant, or irrelevant, are you and I?

Radical life. For Him. I want to embrace it....fully. I want to live my time out here embracing it, and when it comes time to leave this realm, I want to leave with my embrace upon it, upon Him, tighter, and stronger than ever. A radical life for Him will surely result in a radical reaction from all that is not Him. The cost is great. The glory gained for Him is infinitely greater. Do we risk it?

Blessings,
Pastor O