Book: Crazy Love
- Read: July-August 2012
- Rating: 9.5/10
Crazy Love by Francis Chan is basically an epic punch-in-the-face. And for me, it was a well-deserved punch-in-the-face. Francis challenges so-called Christians to be living the way that we shoulde be living… and for me, and I know that there are major changes that I need to make in my life. This book is a wake up call. And I won’t lie. Since finishing the book in early August, it’s been pretty hard to make some changes, but pretty easy to make others. I recommend this book whole-heartedly… just be ready to be challenged.
Quotes / My Notes
Be called (or named) a Christian by others watching your life
“We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You’ve probably heard the expression ‘I believe in God, just not organized religion. I don’t think people would say that if the church truly lived like we are called to live. The expression would change to ‘I can’t deny what the church does, but I don’t believe in their God.‘”
“We are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry.”
“When we love God because we feel we should love Him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we have forgotten who God really is”
“A.W. Tozer writes, ‘What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us… Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.‘”
“To say that God is holy is to say that He is set apart, distinct from us.”
Attributes of God:
- Holy
- Eternal
- All-Knowing
- “He knows who we are and what we are about. We cannot escape Him, not even if we want to”
- All-Powerful
- Fair and Just
“God does not have to know us well, but He chooses to”
“Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, 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 toward others, or our tight grip of control.”
“The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. It is His movie, His world, His gift.”
“Some people waste their lives. This isn’t meant to bash those who are gone, but rather to warn those who are alive.”
“Any compliments you received on earth will be gone; all that will be left for you is truth”
“Frederick Beuchner writes, ‘Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever.‘”
“To be brutally honest, it doesn’t really matter what place you find yourself in right now.”
“Most of us, to some degree, have a difficult time understanding, believing, or accepting God’s absolute and unlimited love for us.”
“Nothing compares to being truly, exuberantly wanted by your children”
“When we love God, we naturally run to Him- frequently and zealously”
“Our motivation changes from guilt to love”
“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. Period.”
“Are we in love with God or just His stuff?”
“In the US, numbers impress us. We gauge success of an event by how many people attend or come forward. We measure churches by how many members they boast.”
“Speakers are extraconscious of communicating in a way that is accessible to everyone. Speakers don’t use Jesus’ tactic to eliminate people who are not sincere seekers.”
“I think most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns. Thorns are anything that distracts us from God.”
“Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin. They don’t genuinely hate sin and aren’t truly sorry for it; they’re merely sorry because God is going to punish them. Lukewarm people don’t really believe that this new life Jesus offers is better than the old sinful one.”
“Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer”- Romans 6:1-2
“Lukewarm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God.”
“Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to.”
“If you sign up for the Marines, you have to do whatever they tell you. They own you. Somehow this realization does not cross over to our thinking about the Christian life. Jesus didn’t say that if you wanted to follow Him you could do it in a lukewarm manner. He said, ‘Take up your cross and follow me.‘”
“We’re willing to make changes in our lives only if we think it affects our salvation.”
“We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says ‘I know him’ but does not do what he commands is a liar; the truth is not in him” - 1 John 2:3-4
“Does anyone enjoy token praise?”
“He was saying that no worship is better than apathetic worship. I wonder how many church doors God wants to shut today.”
“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.”
“According to God, we are here to love. Not much else really matters.”
“Do you live as though faith, demonstrated through love, really is the only thing that counts?”
“your love is better than life”
“Lukewarm living and claiming Christ’s name simultaneously is utterly disgusting to God.”
“When loving Him becomes obligation, one of many things we have to do, we end up focusing even more on ourselves.”
“I never made a sacrifice. We ought not to talk of ‘sacrifice’ when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”
“If you really want to experience God’s supernatural provision, then do as He says. Test Him. Give more than you can manage, and see how He responds.”
“Christians today like to play it safe. We want to put ourselves in situations where we are safe ‘even if there is no God’”
“We out to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth”
“The good things we cling to are more than money; we hoard our resources, our gifts, our time, our families, our friends.”
“Dare to imagine what it would mean for you to take the words of Jesus seriously.”
“What are you doing right now that requires faith?”
“We are consumed by safety”
“Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.”
“If one person ‘wastes’ away his day by spending hours connecting with God, and the other person believes he is too busy or has better things to o than worship the Creator and Sustainer, who is the crazy one?”
“Joy is something that we have to choose and then work for.”
“There is another path, an alternative to the individualism, selfishness, and materialism of the American Dream (even the so-called Christian version)”
“We try to set our lives up so everything will be fine even if God doesn’t come through.”
“Is This What I Want To Be Doing When Christ Comes Back?”