We had our first life group study tonight for Crazy Love. We had quite a few people who were unable to attend so I decided to post the videos here and also to use this as an online discussion group each week. Our assignment for next week is to read through the first chapter. You can add comments below if you have questions or if you would just like to share your thoughts. Think of this as a group discussion that continues throughout the week. I’ll add my comments on the chapter as I read through it again. And here’s the cool part, it’s open for anyone to add comments, even if you aren’t in our life group. If you’re adventurous, then you can check out an online book discussion with plenty of comments and discussion about the first two chapters of the book at this site.

Here are the videos we showed tonight. They give you a glimpse of what the book is about and who Francis Chan is. We had a great discussion time and I’m excited about the next 10 weeks. Also, our group will continue to meet at 7pm each Friday night. Join in on the discussion.  Watch all 4 videos in the playlist below.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=36ED57934CD85DAD

I hope everyone is having a great week enjoying the snow. Our life group at Cornerstone is currently studying through book, Crazy Love by Francis Chan.   Each week, I will be recapping our previous meeting and talking about the current chapter we are reading.  This week’s assignment is to read chapter 2 and come prepared to discuss it Friday night.  Join in with your comments below.  The discussion is open to those who are not in our life group as well.

We had a great meeting last week, plenty of people and plenty of discussions.  We even got to see the newest addition to our group, 2 week old baby Caleb.  This book is already making us think.  The first chapter establishes a proper perspective of God.  When you recognize God for His holiness and power, it changes your perspective on how to live.  When we stop praying out of routine, and start praying out of love and a desire to spend time with our Father, we will hear from God clearly and regularly.

I really enjoyed reading the 2nd chapter.  When I initially read the book, this was the chapter that really grabbed my attention and got me interested in the book.   It’s one of those tough messages that we need to hear.  The chapter starts out by reminding us that we could die any minute, and it goes on to remind us that our life is completely about the story of God.  It reminded me of the opening quote from Rick Warren’s, The Purpose Driven Life …

It’s not about you.  The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness.  It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions.  If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God.

In James 4:13-14, we see that our life is short, that life is brief, and that it is up to us to make the most of it for God. On page 42, Chan gives us definitions for stress and worry.  “Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, or powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.   Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towrard others, or out tight grip of control.”   When I read that, it really convicted me of how much I worry and stress about things that aren’t important in life.  I also connected with the analogy that compared our life to a movie about God.  Our role is an extra in the story and we only appear for a split-second.  We are not the star!  So why do we live our lives as if we are the center of the whole universe?  The chapter ends with a simple quote, “Friends, we need to stop living selfish lives, forgetful of our God.”

Let me challenge you this week to slow down and look at the big picture.  Realize that you were created for God, and that he deserves our obedience and love.   Let me know your thougths in the comments below.  Also, here is the video overview from chapter 2.  You can find more information at the website for Crazy Love.

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.

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?”

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.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update in this series. We are currently going through this book in our life group for older teens and college students, so I wanted to jump back in and finish the series. Previously I had shared how I struggled through chapter 5 because of the focus on external actions which reflect the condition of your heart.

In order to understand Chan’s viewpoint, I think chapter 5 must be read in context of the entire book. When you read chapter 6, the focus and purpose of the book become much clearer. The entire tone changes as grace and hope are shared. Here is how Chan turns the corner to start discussing the solution to lukewarm living:

My fear in writing the previous chapter is that it only evokes in you fear and guilt.  Personal experience has taught me that actions driven by fear and guilt are not an antidote to lukewarm, selfish, comfortable living.  I hope you realize instead that the answer is love.

He starts out the chapter with a quote that really spoke to me. Chan actually quoted a paragraph from John Piper’s Book, God is the Gospel. That one quote was the inspiration for my sermon God is Enough a few months ago. (here is the link to the sermon mp3) Read this slowly.

The critical question for our generation, and for every generation is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

After reading this quote, I had to go and read the entire book by Piper. It dives deep into God’s Glory. But the question that kept ringing through my mind was simply this, “Is God enough?”  Strip away all the stuff in life: the good, the bad, the sickness, the success, the failure, the poverty, and the wealth, and simply look at your life. Can you honestly say that God is enough? When God becomes your consuming passion, then your desire is to follow Him no matter the cost and there is no room for half-hearted, lukewarm living. I am so glad that this book is not an angry diatribe against the American church. Instead it is a loving reminder to discover true life in Christ.

Here are some other quotes that I highlighted as I read through the chapter.

• When we love, we’re free! We don’t have to worry about a burdensome load of commands, because when we are loving, we can’t sin.
• But the solution isn’t to try harder, fail, and then make bigger promises, only to fail again.
• we are called to surrender everything for Christ
• While discussing the church in Laodicea, Chan shares “His counsel wasn’t to “try harder,” but rather to let Him in.”
• Something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. The Holy Spirit has to move in our lives.
• There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you.
• God is the only true Giver, and He needs nothing from us. But still He wants us. He gave us life so that we might seek and know Him.

Chapter 7 is titled “your best life ….later”  I’ll let you figure out how he came up with the title.

You have probably heard throughout your life that following Christ is easy, that everything will work out fine once you place your faith in God.  I don’t know how many times I have heard the phrase “the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will”  But is that true?  Is it really safe and easy to follow Christ?  I don’t think it is, and this chapter does a great job of explaining the challenges and possible consequences of following Christ. It’s a great argument against the prosperity gospel that is being spread through the church today.

The chapter starts out with the following statement:

By now you’ve probably realized that you have a distinct choice to make: just let life happen, which is tantamount to serving God your leftovers, or actively run toward Christ. Do you recognize the foolishness of seeking fulfillment outside of Him? Do you understand that it’s impossible to please God any way other than wholehearted surrender?

Chan uses Hebrews 11:35-38 to show that even those who have faith may encounter trials, troubles, persecution, and danger.  Following Christ is never safe, in fact Chan says that we simply cannot live in safety if we desire to please God.  If we want to truly follow Christ, then 1 John 2:6 tells us that we must walk as Jesus did.  Chan uses the rest of the chapter to talk about our responsibilities to live out our faith. This is a challenging chapter to read, because the church in America has become so comfortable and safe that we don’t take all the commands of Christ seriously.  Here are some quotes from the chapter

• We see Matthew 25:45 as a fresh perspective on poverty rather than a literal picture of impending judgment.
• How would my life change if I actually thought of each person I came into contact with as Christ?
• Basically, Christ is connecting the command to “love God” with the command to “love your neighbor.” By loving “the least of these,” we are loving God Himself
• One of the clearest ways we love “with actions and in truth” is through giving to others.
• Imagine if the disciples had simply held onto the food Jesus gave them, continually thanking Him for providing lunch for them. That would’ve been stupid when there was enough food to feed the thousands who were gathered and hungry.
• The concept of downsizing so that others might upgrade is biblical, beautiful … and nearly unheard of.
• Walking in genuine intimacy and full surrender to God requires great faith.
• What are you doing right now that requires faith?
• Life is comfortable when you separate yourself form people who are different from you
• But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.

So are you living a safe life? A life of great faith?  A life of comfort and safety?  I urge you to take seriously the commands of Jesus to completely surrender your life to Him.  Following Christ may not be safe, but it is fulfilling.  If you have read this book, how did this chapter speak to you?  I think it was one of the most thought-provoking and challenging chapters in the book.  It made me want to start selling all my ‘stuff’ and downsize so that I could better minister to others.  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Although it’s taken me almost an entire year to blog through the book, I want to finish sharing about each chapter of Crazy Love by Francis Chan. This has been one of the most popular series of posts on my blog, and I know that this book has made a profound difference on many people, myself included.

Do you consider yourself a person obsessed with Christ? The title of chapter eight is “profile of the obsessed” and it deals with the way we live our life for Christ. The dictionary defines obsessed as to have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic. Our culture makes us think that obsessed people are crazy. Words such as fanatic, extremist, weirdo, and worse are thrown at anyone who lives their life preoccupied with Christ.  However, Chan shares that “the idea of holding back certainly didn’t come from Scripture. The Bible teaches us to be consumed with Christ and to faithfully live out His words.”

This is one of the best chapters in the book. One passage that really had an impact on me personally was about the contrast between risk and safety. Chan says, “we’ve elevated safety to the neglect of whatever God’s best is, whatever would bring God the most glory, or whatever would accomplish His purposes in our lives and in the world. Would you be willing to pray this prayer? God, bring me closer to You … whatever it takes …” When we live in crazy love with Christ, we are not living in safety. We are called to take risks and follow Him no matter what the cost. That is the picture the Bible paints of the disciples, and it is what we are called to do as well.

Let me leave you with several quotes about what an obsessed person looks like. Read over these slowly and apply them to your life.

• People who are obsessed with Jesus give freely and openly, without censure. Obsessed people love those who hate them and who can never love them back.
• People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress.
• People who are obsessed with Jesus live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another. Obsessed people believe that Jesus talked about money and the poor so often because it was really important to Him.
• Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don’t always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth.
• A person who is obsessed with Jesus knows that the sin of pride is always a battle. Obsessed people know that you can never be “humble enough,” and so they seek to make themselves less known and Christ more known.
• People who are obsessed with Jesus do not consider service a burden. Obsessed people take joy in loving God by loving his people.
• People who are obsessed with God are known as givers, not takers. Obsessed people genuinely think that others matter as much as they do, and they are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world.
• A person who is obsessed thinks about heaven frequently. Obsessed people orient their lives around eternity; they are not fixed only on what is her in front of them.
• A person who is obsessed is characterized by committed, settled, passionate love for God, above and before every other thing and every other being.
• People who are obsessed are raw with God; they do not attempt to mask the ugliness of their sins or their failures. Obsessed people don’t put it on for God; He is their safe place, where they can be at peace.
• People who are obsessed with God have an intimate relationship with Him. They are nourished by God’s Word throughout the day because they know that forty minutes on Sunday is not enough to sustain them for a whole week, especially when they will encounter so many distractions and alternative messages.
• A person who is obsessed with Jesus is more concerned with his or her character than comfort. Obsessed people know that true joy doesn’t depend on circumstances or the environment; it is a gift that must be chosen and cultivated, a gift that ultimately comes from God.
• A person who is obessed with Jesus knows that the best thing he can do is be faithful to his Savior in every aspect of his life, continually saying “Thank You!” to God. An obsessed person knows there can never be intimacy if he is always trying to apy God back or work hard enough to be worthy. He revels in his role as child and friend of God.

Let me ask you again, are you obsessed with Christ? If you can’t answer that positively, then I urge you to fall crazy in love with Christ. This book is a great way to get started on the journey.