I just finished reading the latest book by Jud Wilhite. Eyes Wide Open is a great book about grace.  Let me share a question that Jud asks in the book, “Is it possible to be a Christian and be a miserable, life-draining, and negative person?”  As you have heard me say before, the church has become so well known for what we are against, that most people don’t even know the Christ we follow.   Where have the grace and love gone?

This book seemed like a continuation of Francis Chan’s Crazy Love.   We need to be reminded that God does indeed love and care for us, and our love for Him flows out of this realization.   We don’t follow Christ because of an obligation or because we are trying to be perfect, we follow Christ because we are seeking Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  I have to be honest, I was afraid this was going to be another book all about feeling good about ourselves, but after reading it, my fears were unfounded.  While the main focus of the book is grace, obedience and repentance are not left out.

Wilhite really challenges us that we don’t have to hide and pretend that we have everything together.  I love his description of Spiritual Growth on page 107,  Grace + Truth + Time = Growth!  All of these things must be working together.     If you are struggling with your identity in Christ, then this is a great book to read.  Here is some info about the book from the publisher.

I had it all backwards. The main thing was not my love for God, but his love for me. And from that love I respond to God as one deeply flawed, yet loved. I’m not looking to prove my worth. I’m not searching for acceptance. I’m living out of the worth God already declares I have. I’m embracing his view of me and in the process discovering the person he created me to be. Eyes Wide Open, Jud Wilhite invites you to discover the real you. Not the you who pretends to be perfect to satisfy everyone’s expectations. Not the you who always feels guilty before God. Not the you who secretly feels God forgives everyone else but only tolerates you. Not the you who looks in the mirror and sees a failure. The real you, loved and forgiven by God, living out of your identity in Christ.

A travel guide through real spirituality from one incomplete person to another, Eyes Wide Open is a book of stories about following God in the messes of life, about broken pasts and our lifelong need for grace. It is a book about seeing ourselves and God with new eyes–eyes wide open to a God of love.

Through the Blogger review program at Thomas Nelson, I had the privilege to review the Next Generation New Testament.  Anytime I can take a look at how companies are combining technology with youth ministry I get excited.  It contains CD’s full of mp3 files of the entire International Children’s Bible New Testament, read and dramatized by an all-star cast of tween and teen stars.  It contains over 23 hours of scripture read by American Idol Jordin Sparks, Hannah Montana cast members Emily Osment and Cody Linley, High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu, actress AnnaSophia Robb, and many more.  Max and Jenna Lucado provide great book introductions as well.

Since I have been in youth ministry for a long time now, I wanted to see if this would be appropriate to give to teens. After spending some time listening through it, I would have to say that the better audience would be the 8 to 13 ‘tweener’ crowd.   The sound effects and soundtrack add to the dramatic feel of the narration.  Think of it as a movie without the video.

I decided to check it out with some help from my 10 year old daughter.  She was excited when she realized that some of her favorite tv and movie stars took part in narrating the Bible.  She likes it and now wants to use my old iPod nano just for listening to the Bible. If it helps my children get excited about God’s Word, then it definitely gets my attention.  The best part was the dvd containing video clips of all of the actors and actresses sharing about their faith.  It was great seeing my kids engaged and excited about hearing the testimony of others.

It did seem a little strange to hear some of the adult roles in the Bible being read by teen boys with very young voices.  And I would have preferred that they base the project on a Bible version that wasn’t for young children.  I think pre-teens and teens can easily understand most modern adult translations.  But overall I think this is a great idea, one that I would recommend for middle schoolers with iPods.

The Word of Promise: Next Generation is much more than just a word-for-word reading: it’s an all-star cast performing audio drama with a rich original score and Hollywood special effects. When Jesus walks on the water, kids will feel like they’re in the boat. When Peter waits in the courtyard during the Lord’s trial, the fire will crackle. The ambient sounds of the Holy land, the breath-taking musical score, the world-class young actors and the timeless Word of Promise all combine to deliver an unparalleled achievement.

Set includes 24 hours of audio drama on 3 mp3 CDs and a bonus 75 minute Behind-the-Scenes DVD featuring interviews with the actors.

If you have read through my twitter updates, you know that I have not been a big Adam Lambert fan on American Idol. I get tired of hearing every song turned into a screamfest.  But I was excited to see two worship leaders, Danny Gokey and Kris Allen, end up in the top three.   Kris surprised many by winning, but he is truly a great artist and a great guy.  Here is a clip of him leading worship at church.  I really love this song, and I’m grateful that he is using his talent to honor God.  Let’s all pray for him.  He has a huge opportunity.

Kris Allen Singing “God Of This City” from Rick Smith on Vimeo.

thanks to Rick Smith for the link

Our study through the book Crazy Love has been great. It has generated good discussion and it has made us think. This week was no different. I’ll just jump right in and say it, Chapter 5 of Crazy Love is controversial. The title of the chapter is serving leftovers to a holy God. In Chapter 4, Chan gives us a description of a lukewarm Christian. That lays the groundwork for the theme of this chapter. Let’s look at some of the statements from this chapter

• To put it plainly, churchgoers who are “lukewarm” are not Christians.
• Jesus’ call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. The thought of a person calling himself a “Christian” without being a devoted follower of Christ is absurd.
• We’re willing to make changes in our lives only if we think it affects our salvation.
• I do not want true believers to doubt their salvation as they read this book. In the midst of our failed attempts at loving Jesus, His grace covers us.
• We should have a posture of obedience and surrender, where a person perpetually moves toward Christ.
• God wants our best, deserves our best, and demands our best.
• Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.
• God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.
• I fully believe that we are saved by grace, through faith, by the gift of God, and that true faith manifests itself through our actions.
• How many of us would really leave our families, our jobs, our education, our friends, our connections, our familiar surroundings, and our homes if Jesus asked us to?

After starting the discussion, everyone jumped right in with their thoughts.  The basic feeling of the group was one of dejection. It does make you realize how far we are from Biblical Christianity.   But honestly, this chapter left most people in our group more confused than challenged.   In our discussion, I think we zeroed in what was troubling us.  In chapter 4, we learned the characteristics of a lukewarm Christian.  Many of these characteristics are outward actions.   But the true test of whether you are lukewarm is not your outward actions, but the condition of your heart.   I think this is where the book could have been clearer.  It is very easy to read this chapter and come away with a “works-based” mentality to your salvation. That it’s all about what you do for God, and that if you don’t do enough then you’re in danger of God spitting you out like the passage in Revelation 3 that this chapter is based on. Chan does talk about grace, but only after he makes some pretty strong statements.

When you surrender your life to Christ, you have to completely trust Jesus.  That’s faith, being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you can’t see.  But you will still have times in your life when you struggle and you don’t stay as close to God as you know you should.  It doesn’t mean that you lose your salvation, but it does mean you miss out on God’s blessing in your life.   I fully agree with Chan that God wants your full commitment.  I don’t believe you can truly come to Christ ‘half-heartedly.’   Don’t get me wrong here, I really love this book.  But we have to focus on the condition of our hearts if we truly want to change our behavior.  This chapter makes you take 2 Corinthians 13:5 and put it into practice, and that is a very good thing.  We should be challenged to examine our faith, and we should be challenged to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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?”

I’m a little late getting this posted from last week, but it’s better late than never. I hope everyone is enjoying the book and reading through chapter 4 getting ready for this week’s group. We had a great time discussing chapter 3 last week, and I wanted to share some of the quotes that stuck with me. Understanding the crazy love that God has for us is so important.

Here are the quotes that really stood out to me:

• My own love and desire for my kids’ love is so strong that it opened my eyes to how much god desires and loves us.
• Most of us, to some degree, have a difficult time understanding, believing, or accepting god’s absolute and unlimited love for us.
• When we love God, we naturally run to Him – frequently and zealously.
• Do we have “reverent intimacy”
• I don’t have to worry about not meeting His expectations.  God will ensure my success in accordance with His plan, not mine.
• God’s mercy is a free, yet costly, gift.
• The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.
• The greatest good on this earth is God.

What are your thoughts on this chapter?  What spoke to your heart?  I pray that we will all learn how to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.