Be Radical for Jesus! Or Other Radicals Will Fill The Void! by Kelly Durant
Acts 2:44-45 Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, 45 and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.
2. The disciples of Jesus were radical! What is a radical? Is it not a person so obsessed with a cause they perceive as just so much that their passion moves them to invest their whole life into bringing about a beneficial change to others? Radicalness can be extremely good or extremely bad! Do recall how Jesus called others? Matthew 4 18 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him. They quit their jobs on the spot and followed Him, isn’t that radical? At that moment they didn’t know much about what they were going to follow, but it was an obvious mission, an invitation to go on a journey with an anointed impressive teacher (Rabbi)! Inside they knew it would be well worth it! Today they will remain famous forever because they followed Jesus, the Son of God!
That radical lifestyle change today is like someone walking into your workplace or school, pointing at you and saying, “Hey walk out the door with me and follow me on a mission that’s worth much more than this waste of time!” Have you noticed that everyone that has chosen to serve God has done exactly this? They have forsaken their nets, their former jobs, or their former lives that had them trapped to go on a mystery journey of Jesus’ mission. We all know it is better to die for something than live for nothing? Today, however, sadly confused people may choose certain missions that are horrific!
I actually never fully understood enough about Jesus myself until I witnessed other radical Christians living for Him. When I discovered that following Jesus was much more than just being dedicated to going to church on Sunday and following certain ethical rules, I caught the fire to want to be radical like Him and live like Him in every way! When I was exposed to others who loved Him so much they were willing to leave behind everything to serve Him just for love, to deeply study His Word daily and then go off to be a missionary, it was then I understood that God had a mission for me. I had to see His words in practice, not just on paper to get it! Ask yourself, do others see me, loving, doing, and obeying more than in a mediocre way?
3. Most everyone, even the atheist and communists I have had conversations with, have admitted they have respect for the radicalness of Jesus! Jesus gained followers (mega millions for 2 millennia already!) giving His life suffering for a righteous cause; it was for a better world saving others to come into the Kingdom of God. And what is this Kingdom like? What was His radical movement about? As Christians we understand it more as we grow in faith, but the mis-interpretation of non-Christians of His message leads to disaster as many people are blinded by the filters of their own agendas. Without God’s truth people become blinded by the agendas sold to them by deceivers who use them as useful idiots! Radicals sometimes may even speak of Jesus fitting Him into their ideas of radical solutions to cure the ills of the community. Judas aspired that Jesus would fit into the mold of becoming a zealot leader to lead the fight against the Romans. But most radical agenda motivated people live in a dark vacuum ignoring and rejecting what Jesus taught! People who do not become a radical for Jesus either become mediocre narcissists or they become radicals for any trending controversial cause! Radical agenda puppets ironically become hypocrites ‘straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel’ as Jesus phrased it!!
Here’s an example of not understanding the ways of God, the case of a cocaine drug Lord in the 1980s, Roberto Suarez. At one time he was the Pablo Escobar of Bolivia (but he never murdered hundreds of people as Carlos did!). You may be aware that mission minded people such as myself always dream of meeting these big drug Lords with the hope of bringing them to Jesus. Actually several prominent ones have been converted over the years in Colombia and all South America, glory be to God! In Bolivia one time my wife and I actually did meet the mother of Roberto Suarez. She said he had to hide every day and she did not know where he was but she agreed to give him a salvation tract the next time she would see him! She was a Christian living a modest average life not accepting her son’s money and everyone in town knew her.
So to make a point of how being a radical can be deceiving and misguided from Jesus original intent, I will share a few words of what Roberto said in an interview in a news article (about 1983). He said (by how I best recall) something like this, “I am sort of like Jesus, I gain wealth (but by drugs!?) and then I share it with everyone, so I help people like Jesus and the disciples did when they shared” This has an inference to the verses of today, Acts 2:44,45. He said, “I am like a communist in my own way doing good like Jesus did”. No one could deny that the influx of millions of dollars did help the economies of some of these small towns but it is sad that he was blind to ignore the sin of the damage being done to people by his version of illicit capitalistic marketing! Drug addicts destroy families (I have seen too many!) producing poverty, anger, and despair. And the reality is the ruthless under lord pushers do not mind killing if they can make more money! Drugs in general from illegal markets or from legal drug companies have become a curse from Satan chaining souls to the fires of hell itself!
4. Too many people in this world want to believe that they are “doing good” being a radical like Jesus but they, by their actions, reveal that they do not really know Him and sadly He will tell them this verse one day… Matthew 7:23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ To practice God’s form of radicalism you must study the Bible every day, intensely pray, and then seek to serve and obey the life changing actions that you have learned! A radical doesn’t fade after a year either, you must then remain in the way of holiness, serving and loving others for the rest of your life to gain a “crown of life”! Revelation 2:10 (b) Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
I survived the 70s and that was time when many radicals rose up riding the wave of resistance to the system over civil rights, the Vietnam War, racism, etc.. Considering the world political climate at that time, the U. S. people were correct in defending civilians and also in doing what they could to stop the spread of evil communism in all the world considering that the communist leaders, from the Bolsheviks to Mao Tse Tung, had been responsible for an estimated 100 million people! Disdain by protesters was justified as Korea, Vietnam, and other internal endeavors were rendering catastrophic results. This suffering and upheaval did cause many people to seek God and there were several Jesus movements birthed at that time. Jesus has always been the solution to the pain in all the communities of the world! If everyone in all nations were to get converted then people would “learn war no more”! Isaiah 2:4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
Why am I mentioning this? Because currently in this nation there is a massive indoctrination taking place amongst the populous (in particular in the universities) with the media outlets in cahoots with the powers that be to persecute, ridicule, and demonize any conservative or Bible believing Christian! I am appalled that too few pastors will be radical enough to show any resistance to this ever increasing Satanic ‘machine’! Franklin Graham speaks out. But take note that in the year 2017, we will be surviving 100 years of communism and its imposition is not fading away in infamy even after 100 million deaths! Here is the factor of Acts 2:44,25, sharing the wealth is originally a Christian practice, and annually about half million groups in the U.S. give help to dozens of millions of people out of love voluntarily because they are practicing their Christian faith or the altruistic Christian values!
Communism, however, is an imitation of compassion, and it reigns with military mandated despotic control over the masses eliminating dissenters by murder in order to create a (false) utopia. Has this experiment concocted by Satan inspired Karl Marx ever been successful anywhere? It is a failed system augmenting poverty and atheism which consequently debases people into the survival dog eat dog mode erasing human respect and morals allowing corruption to reign free resulting in despair, mass depression, and psychosis. It is the preposterous plan of Satan to demand the replacement of Christianity by the state in order to try to prove that a ‘no God’ or if you want a god, then a ‘caliphate’ system would govern so much better than the traditional righteousness of God Himself! The lie that redistribution of wealth and stealing from the rich solves matters has proven to be unrealistically impossible due to the corrupt state of man. Only Jesus can change the nature of corrupt man!
5. I really never cared to study about the life of radicals but today the world is getting full of them and they are affecting all of us so we must uncover their game in order to confront them with our faith. A radical, Saul D. Alinsky, wrote a book called the “Rules for Radicals” and today we will study this ideology. Many have schemed how to manipulate societies and he mentions eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to do that and have an effective socialist state. With each radical activity he proposes, I will offer a Biblical rebuttal as the solution. Take note that each proposal here has been employed by all dictators from Lenin to Hitler (And fascism is comparable to what is practiced by communist dictators or current caliphates) Have you seen these practices implemented recently?
1) Healthcare: ‘Control healthcare and you control the people’. Jesus healed the sick and he sent His disciples to care for them. Consider Matthew 25:37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ In the U.S. and abroad a majority of hospitals are Christian run and they are very efficient! The government run hospitals, such as the VA, or the ones In Cuba, persistently have serious issues. The ACA is still in chaos not covering all the poor as proposed while leaking the private information of millions of people with mega billions of dollars proven to have been wasted already.
2) Poverty: ‘Increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing for them’. The U.S. has lost its war on poverty! When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the welfare law the government provided for 4% of 180 million Americans (about 7 million). Today the government provides for 47% of 320 million (150 million!) The reality is man’s governments cannot resolve the poverty problem! Matthew 26:11 ‘For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always’. The only solution is to help one by one as mentioned in Matthew 25. If all the churches used the bulk of their budget on social services as the Salvation Army, no one would even need government assistance! Christians must practice our verses of today, Acts 2:44-45 and provide for each other and the needy! But an unmentioned factor here is that many people make their own selves poor from sinful habits and waste! Enabling a wasteful modus operandi and encouraging sin will destroy everyone!
6. 3) Debt: ‘Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you’re able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty’. The scripture warns us, Proverbs 22:7 “The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender”. Jesus solution was to live free, free from the corrupted systems! Romans 13:8 “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law”. Justifiably many people protest against the consequences of debt (personal and national) as it enables control by the rich privately owned world banks. Debt interest payments (or the lack thereof) invokes the need for more taxes obliging the middle class to pay for the waste. Debt enables corruption and greed provoking market crashes causing the poor to go deeper into unrepayable debt just to survive. Live debt free! If all Christians and people strived for this our economy would be much stronger.
4) Gun Control: ‘Remove the ability to defend themselves from the government, that way you are able to create a police state’. Consider these words by Jesus… Luke 11:21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. Jesus also stated, Matthew 5:9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God’. God never intends for arms to be used for criminal or personal gain, only for defensive purposes. It would be suicide to turn over one’s arms until it is the millennium under Jesus! A time will come, but is not yet here, when everyone can do as in Isaiah 2:4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
7. 5) Welfare: ‘Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)’. Why did Jesus teach us to pray.. Matthew 6:10 “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread”. God expects us to depend on Him for our needs and He does supply! When you wait on the government for housing they put you on a waiting list 5 years long and expect you to eat nothing for months until they approve your job layoff or injury. So much abuse and embezzlement is done with these welfare programs that someone could declare it a failed system according to the government’s own standard of laws of solvency by which they impose on private industries. In the end, those who don’t work should not expect to eat at someone else’s expense very long, especially all their life. Our portion on earth ever since Adam is to earn our way from the sweat of our brow! Work empowers people. Rulers fear when the people have power! But each person must fight for the good of all!
6) Education: ‘Take control of what people read and listen to, Take control of what children learn in school’. Today most major news channels and schools are not sources of information but rather sources of propaganda. The new national teaching scheme of ‘Common Core’ has been implemented in schools and it contains historical heresies and other content that is very confusing. People today are graduating from schools and colleges with knowledge increased (Daniel 12:4(b) many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase) but sadly we observe that young people are totally confused morally, politically, historically and religiously. Consider Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” We should follow this is advice: "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education." - Theodore Roosevelt
7) Religion: ‘Remove the belief in the God from the government and schools’. I was a kid when they took prayer out of school. Just a few years after that unheard of drug overdoses and crimes infiltrated the schools. In my High School 4 died from overdoses in one year! The respect or fear of God (taught in religion) is the best self-control any society could ever rely own! The problem with the Christian religion is it is in direct competition with Satan! God is a jealous God and only He deserves worship as our creator while Satan is a murderously jealous want-to-be-God and he hates righteous holy Godly religion, specifically Christians. It’s tragic how extremely few let out an outcry over Christians being slaughtered in the world today! You need to be ‘radical’ to confront the evil radicals out there! Those who don’t fall on the rock (Jesus) will fall for anything! Matthew 4:10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ Worship is a need! Beware: education in the government schools and prestigious colleges are not what they use to be!
8. 8) Class Warfare: ‘Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor: This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with the support of the poor’. Matthew 12:25 But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand”. It is common knowledge that Satan and his people use the tactic ‘divide and conquer’. Be careful and ask for discernment from the Holy Spirit so you are not like the common people who buy into the false perceptions sold by the media. They bring division by making you feel justified to attack and hate the cops, to hate the other race, to hate the rich, to hate the Christians, or to hate bigots. The reality is they are blind to their own hate making them the worst bigots and hypocrites ever!
As Christians we must compromise when needed and be united! I know some doctrines are skewed and some churches are eccentric but in the end like Benjamin Franklin said, “If we don’t hang together we are going to hang separately!” As Christians we must recall Jesus had disciples that were from the rich and poor classes, some of them were educated and others not-educated, but for God everyone is loved, needed, and useful! There is no excuse to despise or reject anyone, even one: the drug addict, homeless, or prostitute. Healthy churches should have a variety of rich and poor, black & white and all shades in between! “Let there be no division among you” (I Cor. 1:10) In Holiness Meetings and fellowships is where everyone gets to express love for the other despite any differences of color, class, language, or anything else! Jesus commanded, ‘Love one other!’
As much controversy as it caused with its counter culture trappings, the hippie movement ( with Jesus sub-movements) did help somewhat in dissolving class and race divisions for a season. In the 70s for the first time mixed marriages could exist with less rejection, the rich and poor shared the same sentiments against corruption, and love and peace were in the air. So “Where have all the flowers gone?” The dark powers and social engineers were threatened by the people being empowered by “love and peace” so they then had to subvert everyone’s cry for righteousness diverting it into hedonism and debauchery. It has been proven our past leaders corrupted movements by introducing pot and drugs (then later arresting everyone with them!). They also supported and continue to support violent radical bomb planters such as Bill Ayers. Free love and sex along with sexual perversions destructive to solid family ideals flooded the media news. Hypocritically we witness the money flow for movies exalting violence, and the music industry has filled the hoods not with songs of love and peace but rather with superfluous hate filled propaganda tricking people into a life of crime. All these agendas continue on undisturbed. So, sadly, divisions and hate persists today in many of our communities due to these influences from these despicable radicals in power in politics, Hollywood, and the media industries! And today the Christians, yes you and Jesus Christ, are their target!
9. Does this bring clarity to explain why we see the world so messed up today? It is because the radical evil people are relentless, aggressive, and loud to impose radical policies destroying society while Christians have taken a back seat due to the intimidation. How tragic! Have modern day Christians lost their radicalness? How radical were others for Jesus? His disciples dedicated their lives, even their deaths, for the cause of the Kingdom of God! And Jesus proved that this kingdom was worth fighting for. Jesus proved His kingdom is eternal by his resurrection! Jesus holds the keys to life and death now and those who are in Him will gain the same right to life eternal in an authentic utopian world: heaven!
At this point in the world with all the horrible murder and persecution every Christian is going to have pray down more dedication, more radicalness, more willingness to confront evil and trust that God will win in the end! 1 Timothy 6:12 “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses”. Being aware of Satan’s tactics helps a lot in knowing what to expect from the enemy so you prepare. But there is no formula for preparation. We must trust Jesus as He said that He will give us what to speak in the hour.
I have always been amazed at how communists and other religious radicals can have so much conviction to talk non-stop attacking others, and even killing others for a cause that will reward them nothing in the end! Actually they will have hell to pay for unrepentant evil deeds! How much better it would be for people who are generally predisposed to love the fray, conflict, and fight in life to be dedicated to something of real honor, something righteous, something holy, something eternal, something elatingly emotionally and eternally rewarding. Only Jesus can offer this type of mission!
10. Being radical for Jesus is all about holiness, conviction, love, and defending what is Biblically right! If you really love the lost, you will do what you are able to do to convince them out of their enslaving deceptions as covered today! To do as Jesus did we must share the truth with everyone so they can have opportunity to accept Jesus’ salvation for a cleaning of their soul which will bring them into a new wonderful eternal life. Just talking about Jesus seems radical to many folks!
If you are as radical as the first disciples you will even share your life, goods, and everything with your brothers and sisters to be sure they are living as well as you are as we learned about in Acts 2:44-45. Real love loves all and it is only that kind of love that is worth living and dying for!
Acts 4:13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus”. Radicalness attracts others! May the Lord help us to be more radical for Jesus so we win others to His cause away from the futile selfish and hateful causes offered in the world! Come and pray to be more on fire, more filled with the Holy Spirit, more apologetic, more aggressive, more of a radical for Jesus Christ our Lord who reigns forever and ever!
