Crazy Love Book Study – Chapter 4

We had another great meeting last week. Chapter 4 of Crazy Love makes you think.  It is convicting and encouraging at the same time.   The chapter is a profile of a lukewarm Christian, and Chan challenges you to examine your own life to see if you are hot, cold, or lukewarm.

Here are some characteristics of a lukewarm Christian:

• they attend church because they are expected to
• they give money to church as long as it doesn’t affect their standard of living
• they choose what is popular over what is right
• they want to be saved from the penalty of their sin instead of being saved from their sin
• they are moved by stories of people who do radical things for God, yet they do not act
• they rarely share their faith
• they gauge their morality by comparing themselves to the secular world
• they say they love Jesus, but He is only a part of their lives
• they don’t love God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength
• they love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves
• they will serve others, but with many limits
• they think about life on earth much more often than eternity in heaven
• they are thankful for their luxuries and comforts, and rarely consider tying to give as much as possible
• they do whatever is necessary to keep themselves from feeling too guilty
• they are continually concerned with playing it safe
• they feel secure in their faith because they attend church, made a profession of faith when they were young, were baptized, came from a Christian home, and vote Republican
• they drink and swear less than average, but aren’t much different than non-Christians

2 Corinthians 13:5 tells us that we must examine ourselves to determine if we are in the faith.  This chapter challenges you to do exactly that.  Examine yourselves.  Make sure that you know without a doubt that you are saved.  None of us are perfect, in fact we are far from it, but we must desire to be hot for Christ, and not be content with being lukewarm.

In reading this chapter, my mind kept going back to a video that I saw of John Piper discussing the prosperity gospel that is so prevalent in the church today.  Do we love God because He is all we need, or do we love God because of all the stuff that we have.   Too many churches have distorted and perverted the gospel message to be all about the stuff in our live instead of being about an all-loving and all-powerful God.   This is a powerful and even shocking video to listen to, but it makes you answer the question, “Is God enough?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTc_FoELt8s