Birth of a radical Jesus-follower

A month or so ago, blog reader Justin Rhodes showed up on my radar screen. Here’s how he described his journey: “God saved us from ourselves about 3 years ago and since then we’ve found ourselves on a wild ride of self denial.” I loved the way he and his wife Rebekah have been trying to follow Jesus in a radical way and asked him to share his story with you. Here it is:

I said the salvation “prayer” a million times, got baptized, did some good deeds and avoided most of the socially unacceptable sins. I was like many people of the church today, “saved.”

As a teen I fell into continual sin and doubt. My attitude grew to be, “if God exists, I hate Him”. My girlfriend (who is now my wife) was still into the Sunday church thing so I went along with it and kept quiet just in case she was right, I didn’t want to screw up her eternity.

The birth of a radical
In my mid 20’s I began to study Jesus with an open mind, but what I found wasn’t easy. Jesus really meant it when he said that He wants us to die to ourselves, live for Him and receive life.

Love, according to the Bible is laying down one’s life for someone else. In a casual moment walking around a lake a friend of mine challenged me to start a ministry and I accepted. It was at that moment that I put what little head knowledge I had to work. James says “faith without work was dead.” My faith was dead and useless until that point.

In search for love my wife and I found ourselves as house parents at a children’s home. It’s there we found comfort in ministering to the least and caring for the orphan.

Starting a ministry
From there we set out to love through adoption and foster care in our own house. After a series of events we ended up spending months as missionaries at Orphanage Emmanuel in Honduras. In 2005 we met a modern day apostle in the form of the late George Muller’s (1800’s) audio biography. George had preached, distributed thousands of Bibles, traveled for more than 15 yrs in foreign missions and housed thousands of orphans. All of that without asking anyone for money or going into debt.

Scripture became a guide to life. With God’s help we wiped out $40,000 of debt in 5 months and began to get rid of unneeded possessions for the poor. That was just the beginning of adventures found in interpreting and living out God’s Words literally. If you look at how Jesus lived and what he taught, it’s extremely radical. In fact, I don’t think you can separate radicalism from true Christianity.

To love your neighbor as yourself, to love your enemy, to pray for those that mistreat you, to turn the other cheek, to store up treasures in heaven are just a few of many crazy, ridiculous, radical commands Jesus wants us to obey. I was born again the moment I put His Words to action.