Sunday, July 27, 2008

Crazy Love

Francis Chan wrote this book, Crazy Love. He's a pastor in Southern California that I have heard speak a number of times. Every time I leave convicted to begin to make changes in my life. There are not many speakers (in fact none) that I can remember there sermons even months and years later. The first time I heard Francis was at a California Student Conference called Tsunami in 2002. I can still remember it. Yeah, he's hilarious, but his stuff is relevant and he is able to speak about things that are going on in my head but haven't been able to put into words.

So, I finished his book. There were a lot of things about this book that I didn't like. Really, I hated them. It wasn't because it was bad writing. It wasn't because it was heretical. It was because he was saying some pretty hard stuff about how I am living my life; and it was truth. And sometimes the truth hurts.

This book looks at American Christianity, and how many of us are just missing the point. We are living our lives out of comfort. We are living our lives in such a way that even if we decided in a radical way that we didn't believe in God any more, not much would change. We might start cussing and drinking more, but other than our lives would be very similar to what they are now. We don't have a crazy love for God, and we're OK with that.

I know I said I didn't like this book, but I really loved the book. Yeah, it was hard for me to read in some areas, because it requires the reader to look honestly at their life and at scripture. Then it requires us to make a choice, either we are going to start following God with everything we got and live radically for him, or we are going to choose to continue living "lukewarm" lives for our comfort rather than living for God. Don't read this book if you are content with being ordinary with your faith. But if you want to love God more, if you want to live a life more in line with what God is asking of us, I recommend this book. This book doesn't have all of the answers, but it's an awesome way to begin.

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