Close your eyes.

Now imagine Jesus. Not Jesus on the cross, not Jesus in sandals and seamless garment ambling along the shores of Galilee, not even Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes to feed the multitudes. Picture the Jesus YOU worship. The Jesus who is real to you, in your heart, alive to you today. The Jesus you have pledged allegiance to spirit, soul, and body, as your response to his redeeming work of love at Calvary.

Now, what has Jesus told you to do? 

We've heard a bajillion sermons about finding our purpose and our calling, in Christ. We've done Bible studies and spiritual gifts testing to determine where God would have us put our leftover energies (after we go to work and care for our families and watch TV and so forth) in the service of the church. We've prayed for missions and missionaries, we've sent monies overseas, maybe taken some trips. 

But too many of us treat the Great Commission - "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Lord and teaching them all things that I have commanded you" - as a suggestion, not a command. We've relegated our Lord's parting instructions to the same value as those old army commercials. Sure, I could "be all I can be," but I don't HAVE to join the army, it's voluntary! We treat the five-fold ministry gifts like Marines: "the few, the proud..." 

David Platt's book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream published by Waterbrook Multnomah, doesn't try to provide all the answers in a few hundred pages. 

And the stories he shares about believers hungering for the Word and the power of God in underground churches in China, in war torn Sudan, and the ones in America who have taken up the charge to obey the Lord's command and are doing uncomfortable, difficult, even dangerous things to introduce Jesus to people who don't know him, are both hard to read and impossible to ignore.

Radical is accompanied by a free "mini-book" entitled The Radical Question that would be an ideal way to introduce these ideas to believers, without asking them to read (gasp) a whole, entire book. Waterbrook Multnomah is offering copies of The Radical Question for free to those who ask. Just visit www.WaterBrookMultnomah.com/RadicalQuestion to request a copy.

Years ago I heard a minister say "the days are coming when a generation will rise up who know God, who know how to believe Him to meet their needs, who know how to walk in His blessings, and that generation will be willing to lay aside their own comfort and convenience, even set aside those blessings, to save the lost."

Platt's book, in my opinion, is a welcome revelation and confirmation that time has come.

Read the first chapter of Radical for FREE here .  

For more information about the book, the author, or to find out about the one-year Radical challenge, visit www.RadicalTheBook.com .