My Radical Manifesto

“A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots.”- Jose Marti

       To live “radically” is an idea that many people fear, and many people tend to stay away from if they can. Radical living, especially when religion is involved, tends to bring to mind an idea of religious extremism, which involves people taking their beliefs to a rare level, and many times taking the role of God upon themselves. Much of the turmoil in which religion finds itself in the midst of, traces the roots of the problem back to extremists who believe it is their “duty” to purge the world of evil, and will take any means necessary to achieve retribution in the name of their God. Although this is not what many intend to convey when they speak of radical living, extremism has sadly become the face of radical living in most cases.

            While many believe extremism to be the only possible way to live a radical life, we are given a far more superior example of radical living throughout the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The perfect picture of a Radical that we have in history is found in Jesus, and every action that he did while on earth. Jesus came into this earth with a purpose, He lived continuously according to this purpose without fail, and He completely went against everything that worldly living calls us to (non-conforming, Romans 12:2). Not mention, he lived radically without even trying.

Here we are presented with our problem, and our initial error in attempting to live radically. People believe radical living is something that can be forced, something that can easily be conformed to, and something that takes no real effort on our part at all. Many people believe that they can live a truly radical life by just sitting back, living life normally, and expect something miraculous at some point to happen to prove that God is really there. People believe if they go to church on Sundays, read their Bibles every now and then, and try to live a decent life, they will be ok. The terrible misconception in that comes when Jesus is nowhere to be found in our lives, we have no genuine relationship, and we are basically walking billboards for “right-living” with no real substance in our hearts. We were never called to be perfect, to be a savior to all people, or to somehow think that we can live perfect lives. When you try to live that way, all you will find is yourself broken and alone.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” – John 5: 39-40

            Here is the danger that Christians will run into in their everyday life: we believe that just because we read the Bible, and talk about Jesus we are somehow doing everything right. That is the foothold we find ourselves in. It’s not about just reading the Bible for the sake of gaining knowledge, it’s not about talking about Jesus to build up your repertoire, and it’s not about praying to make ourselves feel better. Everything that we do in our lives should be rooted in the fact that we are placing ourselves in a position to be impacted by God, and have His Holy Spirit work within us. Too many people in our time do things to somehow boost their self-image or for selfish gain, and this is a trap we all fall into (myself especially).

            Jesus Tells us that we read the scriptures, which should lead us directly to Him based on their evidence of who He is, yet somehow we never actually go to Him so that we can truly live. We claim to desire to live radically, to be placing ourselves in a position to live radically, yet we somehow miss the only thing, which truly can allow us to live radically, Jesus. The only way to live a truly radical life is to be seeking Jesus himself daily, denying every fleshly impulse you have in your body, and desiring to have the will of God lived out through your daily life.

 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? – John 5: 44

            We, as humans, tend to find our worth in what the world thinks of us, and find our significance in the impact that we personally are having on other people. We judge how well we’re doing in our spiritual life by the impact we are making on those around us, and how they view us as spiritual beings. This is our flaw. We worry too much about our impact on others, and if we are truly being effective for God’s Kingdom. You will only make an impact in this life, if you first realize you have no ability to make an impact. All you can do is entrust everything to the Father, and allow Him to work through you.

            People never want to admit their imperfections, they never want people to know there’s something wrong with them, and they want to build up this image of themselves that everyone will somehow bow down to and recognize as worthy of the calling of God. The only time you can be worthy of the calling of God is if you have humbled yourself before him, and say, "the only way I can further the Kingdom is through God working in me."

            Which brings me back to my main and final point: Radical living comes only when you get to the heart of what it is you believe, Jesus, and live everyday for Him and Him alone. It’s not about what your church thinks of you, what your bible study thinks of you, what your friends think of you, what anyone thinks of you. It’s all about living for God, admitting you are imperfect and in need of His grace, and living every second according to the Grace which has been bestowed to you. Radical living has nothing to do with religious extremism, with purging the world of evil, with anything violent or crazy.

Radical living is actually quite simple, so simple most people miss it. To be truly radical, all you must do is let go of everything you are holding onto in this world, realize you are nothing without Christ, search for Him in everything, and continuously seek and live your life by Him working within you. That is the only way to be truly radical. Stop living for yourself and the people of this world, and live for Christ and Christ alone.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”- Luke 9: 23

Live boldly this week, and live for Christ above all else.

God Bless,

Trip Starkey

"Everything is Futile"

“It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.”- Blaise Pascal

         Everyone has a certain self-image that they wish to convey to the entire world, and to be honest, the image that we convey is usually contradictory to what is actually going on within ourselves. As humans, we constantly are molding and sculpting our lives into being whatever our hearts desire them to be. We have certain ideals, which we believe to be the most important things to attain in life, and then we put all of our efforts into achieving whatever those ideals may be. The difficulty that comes along with this is that as Christians, we attempt to tack God on the end of whatever it is we’re doing. As the opportunities present themselves in our lives to strive after these ideals, we attempt to make them into some “service to God,” and say that we’re doing them for “godly” reasons, rather than the true selfish desires causing them. For many people, selfish desires drive a lot of the things that they do, and for many Christians, when they are done going after whatever it is that stole their attention, they try to claim that it was for pious reasons, rather than self-centered desires.

         The idea of striving for human cravings, which are worthless, finds itself extremely prevalent in our society, and causes a lot of destruction in the lives of people. Throughout the world, people will literally give all of themselves in search of whatever they believe will make them truly happy in their lives, and either will find temporary happiness or will die trying. In Ecclesiastes, we are given the perfect picture of what it’s like to go completely sold-out for fleshly desires, and to realize what comes out of the search for them.

“So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”- Ecclesiastes 2: 9-11

        

         What the author is explaining in the passage is that he became, in human standards, the greatest and most powerful man in all of Jerusalem. In terms of fleshly desires, he had them all, and if he did not possess them, he worked until he could. He kept from himself nothing he felt he deserved, and he found temporary happiness in all of things that he found in his desires. Don’t hear me wrong, human desires will bring you happiness, but the happiness is fleeting and eventually will lead to a different desire. At a certain point in his search, the author arrived at the realization that everything he was striving after was futile, it all held no value to himself as a person. Everything “under the sun,” or of earthly origin, will bring no true joy or worth to the person who is attempting to find it.

         In daily life, everyone attempts to find the things that they believe will give themselves true joy or peace, but never do we search in the right places. As humans, we all believe to know, based on our own knowledge we have attained, what truly is the best option for us, and what will truly benefit our lives and those around us the most. All of the things we try to find and utilize are earthly things, and we center our entire lives on them. We completely ignore the fact that God is moving within our hearts, and we limit His role as much as possible from truly affecting our inner beings. We think that somehow we are doing God a great service by rooting ourselves in these earthly things, and that He is somehow benefiting from us gaining our own desires. We ignore the fact that all things are from Him, and we try to live life on our own terms. People, in turn, make up all of these little rules which we deem necessary to live by, and if somehow a person ends up living opposite the rules that we have established based on our own understanding, then they are living in opposition to God. Yet the ones who create the rules are living according the world, and the ones who truly strive for God are being called unruly and enemies of God.

“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”- Ecclesiastes 3: 14-15     

            Here is the simple concept that everyone forgets in their day to day lives (myself included), everything that we strive after and everything we have is FROM GOD. If we strive after something for our own accord, it is worthless, because nothing we have will do us any good if it is apart from God. Many people genuinely believe that enforcing their own ideologies on people is somehow doing good for God’s sake, but in doing this they have completely removed God from the situation and taken the burden solely on themselves. Opposite to this, people believe that they are genuinely seeking after something that will truly bring them joy, but once you have removed God from your intentions, you have rendered that desires incapable of providing joy. GOD IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL THINGS, WHEN YOU REMOVE HIM FROM THE CORE OF EVERYTHING YOU DO, YOU LIMIT HIM AND YOURSELF. The thing that is essential to realize is that God does not need our help with His plans for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11), He knows His own plans; on the other hand, we need God at every point in our lives, because when we remove Him from our life we became nothing but a vapor in the wind. God is the only thing that gives us significance and purpose apart from Him we are nothing.

         Know that God loves you more than anything; He died on the cross so that He would be able to spend eternity with His creation (which you are apart of). When you remove him from the center of everything you do, you not only experience temporary happiness, you will never experience anything greater than what you can find, which we are told is nothing but a vapor in the wind.

         Take His words to heart, and have the ears to hear him speaking to you.

God Bless,

Trip Starkey