Radical Or Obedient?

I confess that for a time I used to think that missionaries and people in full time ministry were super-spiritual. I thought that they had something that I didn’t or that somehow God liked them better. I know it’s stupid, but I honestly thought that the more you served God, and the harder your circumstances were, the better off you were with God. As if our good works or radical living could somehow improve our status with God. I’m not the only one who thinks this though. And it’s nothing new - people have been trying to push this line for a long time, thinking that God will like them more if they live off of less or in harder circumstances - people making their own clothes, eating only organic, not using electricity. It doesn’t just go back to the 1990’s or the 1970’s, but it goes even further back to the desert fathers - the monks who thought they could increase their holiness by depriving themselves of more and more things.
But, that’s not the Gospel - that’s a works based system of salvation, where I am in control and it is all up to me. The truth is that

“We are accepted before God based on how righteous Jesus is, not how radical we are. Radical living flows from righteous standing”(David Platt).

And that truth should impact how we live - for some of us, it should free us to realize that we don’t have to put on the “radical” show - that our status before God doesn’t depend on what we do.
And for others of us - it should cause us to get up and live differently - that the fact that we have righteous standing before God will cause us to reevaluate how we spend our money, how we serve God, how we live our daily lives. And if our lives aren’t any different than the world we live in, we need to spend time reflecting on the righteous standing we have been given - and the cost it came by!
So the question I am asking myself this morning is “Am I trying to live more radically to make God like me better or am I striving to live more obediently as I continue to surrender to the promptings of the Holy Spirit?” Since I have been bought at a price and am not my own, I can’t put limits on how God calls me to serve Him. So, while it may seem more radical to go to another country to live and serve God, I am called to live obediently, right now meaning I must stay where I am and serve Him in the circumstances I am in. Radical & obedient living may mean to downsize in order to give more away; it may mean to quit your job here in the US to move overseas to do the same thing in a place where it is more needed; but it may also mean staying faithful & married in a hard marriage; reaching out to your family who doesn’t know Christ; or something else here where we find ourselves today.
As you & I reflect again on our righteous standing before God today, may it lead to radical living for His glory, His fame, and the furthering of His kingdom!