We’ve all seen a picture of an orphaned, starving African child on Facebook. We’ve all read the caption “repost if you care. 90% won’t repost”. We’re guilted into reposting it because we care what our American friends think of us. But do we really care about that child?

As Christians, we should live and love radically.

Recently, my mom showed me a video called “Stuck”. It’s about how millions of children around the world are stuck in orphanages and terrible situations. There are countless videos that expose the poverty and despair in the world. Countless videos that show us just how much work there is to do. What are we called to do about it?

First, we are called to speak up.

We reposted that picture of the African child. We reposted it and forgot about it. We forgot about it because it doesn’t matter to us. What matters to us is ourselves and our comfortable American lives. Yes, we know that children all around the world are starving and dying, but they’re far away.

We know the love of Christ and we keep it for ourselves.

We, the ones who know the True Answer, are content to sit by and let “someone else” do something about it. And we tell ourselves that surely someone else will speak up. Who will be there for the lost child if we aren’t? If we don’t speak up, who will?

Secondly, we are to take risks in our love.

How many of us describe ourselves as radical? On fire for God? How many of us have risked our popularity, our wealth, even our lives, to show the love of Christ to the unloved?

God has blessed us, as Americans, with unique resources. We have enough money to adopt children. We have enough money to buy food for our families. We have enough money even to go to the mall and buy another shirt. Why aren’t we using this money and these resources radically to share Christ’s love and to rescue children from lives of shame and despair? Our possessions are God’s in the first place. He should have the first share of our wealth. We should be using our position as Americans to advance the love of Christ through taking “radical” risks. I don’t know exactly what risks would look like for you. All I know is, we are called to take risks because God will provide everything we need.

Third, we are called to go out of our comfort zones.

We don’t want to go out of our comfort zones. We are content to live in a big house, eat good food, and go to the mall for the rest of our lives without even thinking of the tens of thousands of billions of people that will DIE today and NEVER hear the Good News—that there is a savior for them. A savior who loves them and will take care of them.

PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THIS.

And we chase after worldly things, and we do nothing about those kids who have never had a parent’s love, who are perishing in their sin, who are dying with no hope!

We want to be comfortable, and to be comfortable means that we don’t do anything that would take us outside of our comfort zone. The problem is, we are not called to be comfortable. We are not called to be comfortable. We are called to be like Christ.

Christ hanging on the cross dying for our sins was not comfortable.

Lastly, do something about it!

Let me encourage you to do something about the lost and the unloved in this world. It might not seem like we can do a whole lot. We’re young and inexperienced. But we teenagers are the future of the world. We are the ones who should be stepping up to the plate, carrying on the baton, spreading what we have been taught. We need to speak up, take risks for Christ, and go out of our comfort zones. When we live radically, as witnesses to Christ, we can and we will have an effect on the world around us.