Be A Radical

“God looked over everything he had made;

 It was so good, so very good” *

The more I study the epistles of Paul, the more I am convinced that he had a dynamic understanding of the kind of life that our Heavenly Father intended for us to experience in this world… and beyond!  The church that my wife and I attended during the first few years of our marriage leaned toward the teaching that we had to wait until Jesus’ millennium reign before we could enjoy the many blessing that I have been alluding to over the last few days.  Over the many years since then though, I have come to a totally different conclusion.  My personal studies, my Bible School training and the majority of the leaders, of the great revivals that have spanned our country and Europe since the time of Finney all point to an existence on this earth where we are to be “the head and not the tail!”  (Deuteronomy 28:13 KJV)

Once again, the Message Bible seems to hit this understanding on the bulls eye through its paraphrase of Paul’s words in Romans 5:18 saying, ”Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it.  But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life!”  The King James Version uses the terminology “justification of life.”  The Jamison, Fausset and Brown Commentary states that this expression means “justification entitling to and issuing in the right possession and enjoyment of life.”  You know what?  That sounds like the same original plan that God had for Adam before sin occurred!

God’s creation of the world is described in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible.    In Genesis 1:28 God told His newly created man to “… fill the earth, and be its master.”  (God’s Word ©)  The previous verse tells us that we were created in God’s image.  John Gill in his Exposition of the Entire Bible explains this by saying that “man is as God’s viceregent (or viceroy) and resembled him.”  A viceroy is “the governor of a kingdom or country who rules in the name of the king with regal authority as the king’s substitute.”  (Webster’s original 1828 dictionary)  Does that sound like many Christians you and I know who live down Grumble Alley, just up the block from I Can’t Make It Street?

No!  As Christians we should be living as ones in full command of the rightful possession of life, with complete enjoyment of each and everyday!  Whoa… sounds kinda radical huh?  Well, Jesus was kind of a radical individual in His day and time on this earth too!  When some of the early Believer’s in the book of Acts were brought before the leaders of the city they were in, their accusers stated that “these who have turned the world upside down have come here too!”  Acts 17:6 (MKJV) 

Are those same statements being said about you?  Living this style of life can’t help but force an attitude of joy on you that will ooze off on anyone that you should bump up against! Sounds like fun and adventure to me!  Consider it… and then be about your Father’s business! (See: Luke 2:49)  Stay in tune to His Word and keep asking yourself… “What Radical Lifestyle am I expecting to Live today?”

 * (Genesis 1:31 The Message)