Why My Religion is Risky

​Have I been playing it safe? 
Am I too comfortable?
Have I taken appropriate risk? 

At the beginning of a new year, I wonder if I'm too risk averse.  Faith has NEVER been a safe proposition.  By its very nature, faith involves uncertainty.  And uncertainty requires risk. 

If there's nothing to risk, it's not faith. 

The whole Bible is a story of risk.  Think about these risky details:

• Creation:  To create the world, God risked the possibility that it could be corrupted. 
• Covenant:  To make a covenant – a binding agreement with his people – he risked that it could be violated. 
• Incarnation:  To enter humanity, he risked infancy and all its frailties and vulnerabilities. 
• Cross:  God risked the life of his Son for a rebel race of human beings. 
• Church:  Jesus entrusted his plan for the whole world to fragile and broken people, a serious liability.  

The whole Bible is a story of risk.  God risks to pursue his people, and his people risk to follow him.  

​Yet there is a perception that the Christian life is a comfortable life.  As if it leads to a nice, predictable routine.  Follow the rules, live right, pray, and life will go well for you.  While the gospel gives comfort, we must challenge the notion that it is comfortable.  
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 “Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.”                                                                                    - C.S. Lewis

Our faith in God is accompanied by risk.  We are led into circumstances where it is tenuous to trust him.  We experience situations that are a gut check for our conviction.   Only a real risk will test our belief. 
 
God showed he was serious about us by taking a risk.  We wouldn't know the depth of his heart had he not risked it all for us.  Our God does not play it safe.  He risks because he loves.  And after all the pain, after the cross, and the blood, and the expense, he has no regrets.  He still says, “Yes, it was worth the risk.  YOU are worth the risk.”  
 
​As you answer God's call upon your life this year, what risks will you take?  ​

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