Every once in a while I like to let people know what I'm reading. If you are ever around when I am teaching, you'll probably have already heard about this book as I (like most pastors and preachers) often infuse what God is teaching me into my preaching and teaching.
Risk Is Right (click the title to purchase this on Amazon or you can get it free at www.desiringgod.org) is a short book - only 51 pages - that challenges the reader to live a risk-filled life for God. Notice here that I didn't say a foolish life for the sake of risk or for an adrenaline rush. Risking for God is very different than risking to impress self, others, or risking for a "high".
Piper challenges the reader to look at a variety of biblical models of risk like Esther, Paul, and Joab.
These characters saw that safety was not always the best option and that trusting in God for good things, for God-honoring things is right.
One of my favorite points of the books is that life is inherently risk-filled. I love this notion because it presses us to think differently about risk. The question is less about IF we risk and more so FOR WHOM will we risk. Life is going to have risk, so let's at least make our risk worth something.
A deeper thought that arises out of this book and some of my own reflecting afterward is this: for the Christian all risk for God is worthy because in the end, we are guaranteed Heaven. If we risk and fail, so we fail. If we risk and are embarrassed, so be it. But in the worst of all options we risk and lose our lives for Christ. And the result? We are eternity with Christ forever. And so those doing things like planting churches in places like Turkey and Afghanistan - are they fools for Christ? Perhaps, but then they are in the company of the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 4:10).
Risk is right if the goal is to honor and find joy in Christ.
This is a short and challenging read. I recommend it.
- tC
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