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“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

The—Luke 9:23 NIV

story of Abraham is often told as an example of the radical nature of faith. Abraham accepted on faith that his wife

Sarah would give birth to a child in her nineties, and then after this actually happened, he accepted on faith that God required him to sacrifice this very son, Isaac. God relented of this demand after seeing Abraham’s willingness to do so, but the philosopher Kierkegaard wondered what effect this whole experience must have had on Abraham. Can we go through such experiences and not be radically altered? Look at any of the Old Testament prophets and you see how radical faith can be. Isaiah went barefoot and naked for three years as a prophetic gesture. Hosea married a harlot in order to show how God was similarly yoked to the unfaithful people of Israel. Jesus’s message must have been extremely radical in his day, enough for it to get him executed. The early Christians practiced their faith in secret because they too were in danger of being executed for it. Faith can be comforting, but if all it does is let you sleep well at night, then perhaps you aren’t taking it far enough. As David Platt says in the book Radical, “I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we had missed what was radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable.” Consider whether you have made an idol of comfort and have in the process watered down your faith. – Christopher Simon