What If We All Lived Radically?

What if we lived it all radically?
Fearlessly.
What if we lived like the early ones?
Who resisted to the point of bloodshed?
Who found Him worthy of it all?
What if we repented like Peter?
And preached like Paul?
And walked like James?
And loved like John?

What if we gave it all up
and prayed the words that He first taught:
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done?
What if we let Him build us into temples:
living stones offered, prostrate
before the King of Kings?

The apostles allowed the Lord to build them.

Nothing was so precious to them as the gaze of the Lord. Nothing substituted the call of Christ—to build His Church, to baptize nations. They gave all for the Gospel.  They gave all for love. They weren’t men committed to a lofty ideal or an inanimate law.  They were men in love. Men who had been loved and who learned how to love. And they gave everything, their own blood, to witness to this great love.  It was everything to them.

We are built upon their blood—their witness.

The tax collector who gave his life.
The fisherman who surrendered his nets.
The lost and lonely who were found by Him.

You and I are being built into this temple.

But I must admit that there are many days I allow other things to be more precious than His gaze. Many days I seek love from others rather than from Him. Many days I do not want to be built and many more I am weary in the process of building.

Would I give it all for Him if He called me to?

I suppose the question is better phrased: Will I give it all for Him when He calls me to?

I’m often slow in the process of surrender (perhaps slower in embracing the call to radical discipleship). But these men were not.  Their hearts were converted with just one glance, one word, one invitation.  

Am I a living stone for the Lord?  

Perhaps there is much more to build (and even more to chip away).  But for today, let us surrender the tool belt and be built into living stones—for indeed, we are.