Category Archives: Inspirational

Click on following links for earlier articles: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

How to be a Radical Christian. (iii)

For I am not shamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  (Romans 1:16)

Have you ever shuddered or cringed a little when someone mentioned the name of Jesus to somebody? Maybe at work or at a ballgame. Maybe, you thought to yourself, there are proper places and times to talk about Jesus, but not here, and not now.

Well, have you heard the tradition surrounding the apostle Paul’s last few moments on earth? Talk about bad timing and bad places.

Emperor Nero arrested Paul for insurrection and threw him into prison. The apostle’s first stay in prison had resulted in most of the guards and many in Nero’s household converting to Christianity. So this time, Nero made sure that Paul had little contact with people or visitors.

On the day of Paul’s execution, Nero allowed just a few spectators and only the most hardened, veteran soldiers to escort the apostle to the execution site, outside Rome on the Tiber River.

Paul was unfazed by his fast approaching martyrdom. He preached the gospel as he walked along. His words touched the hearts of more than one soldier; and they, too, were executed with Paul that day.

Just think, Paul so believed in the life-giving message of the gospel that he was willing to seal the fates of any last-minute converts to the same death that was pronounced over him: beheading.

Now, that is a radical love for the gospel.

And that is what every radical Christian must have. A love for the gospel that can only be extinguished by the death of the believer.

Click on following links for earlier articles: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

How to be a Radical Christian (ii).

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels… (1 Cor. 13:1)

Now, I wish that you all spoke in tongues… (1 Cor. 14: 5

I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all do. (1 Cor. 14: 18)

Once again, I can hear the groans and the shouts. “Not tongues. Anything but that trivial twaddle. I ain’t doing it. No siree – no tongues for me. Never!”

Okay, relax. Take a deep, deep breath. Hold it for a minute or so. Now breathe out. Continue reading.

Let’s return to the same scenarion as Part 2. Your family is staying at the luxurious Berverly Wilshire Hote (where Pretty Woman was filmed), just off Rodeo Drive in Berverly Hills, California. Your wife and daughter are enjoying the shopping spree, and you are carrying enough plastic to pay for everything.

Then, three Mumbai-type terrorists enter the hotel lobby, AK-47’s blazing away and hand grenades exploding. Chaos and confusion reigns as dead bodies hit the floor.

Somehow, you grab your wife and daughter, and hide in a first floor cafe. As you crouch behind a table, you hear the sounds of people begging for their lives and the lives of their children. But then, bursts from the AK-47’s lets you know that mercy is not a part of the terrorists’ makeup.

You hear their footsteps approaching the cafe. It will only be seconds before they enter the door. You look at your wife and daughter, tears are streaming down their faces; they don’t want to die. They want you to do something. Anything. Just do something.

Are you going to pray? If so, how?

Now remember, your mind will be a pile of mush. You will have thoughts about wishing you would have stayed home, or should have gone to Hawaii instead of California, or spending a nice sunny day anywhere but not where you are at that moment. Plus, the fear, not wanting your family to die, and total confusion.

How will you quiet your mind to pray at that moment?

Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered.

Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8: 27-28)

Remember: Radical Christians do not care what others think. They swim upstream against the religious current.