Crazy Love

I recently finished what has become, hands down, the best book I have ever read. Crazy Love by Francis Chan. About a year ago, I went to Memphis Tennessee with about 50 other middle schoolers, high schoolers, and leaders for the Live Love Tour. It was an AMAZING weekend!!! Kristian Stanfill lead worship, which was absolutely incredible! (WE ARE THE KINGDOM OF GOD; WE ARE AN ARMY OF LOVE!!) And Francis Chan was the main speaker. Most of what he talked about came straight out of his book, Crazy Love. And a few months ago, I finally picked up the book to go through with my small group. And was just able to finish several days ago. So, I got thinking that I'd like to share with cyber space some things I learned from the book.... Now, I'm a BIG highlighter/note taker when it comes to books. But when I flip through the pages of the book now, it looks like I underlined every single sentence.... It was THAT good. This causes a great dilemma though... because now I have to pick and choose what to share! I guess you'll just have to go read the rest for yourself!



"Men are never duly touched an impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God."

"It confuses us when loving God is hard. Shouldn't it be easy to love a God so wonderful? 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."

"If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can. God is so much bigger; so far beyond our time encased, air/food/sleep-dependant lives."

"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. One the contrary, we tend to live a though our lives would go on forever."

"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."

"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."

"Lukewarm people think about life on earth much more than eternity in heaven. Daily life is mostly focused on today's to-do list, this week's schedule, and next month's vacation."

"Lukewarm People do not live by faith; their lives are structured so that we never have to. They don't have to trust God is something unexpected happens-they have their savings account. They don't need God to help them-they have their retirement plan in place. They don't genuinely seek out what life God would have them live-they have life figured and mapped out. They don't depend of God on a daily basis-their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are in god health. The truth is, their lives wouldn't look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God." (This kills me... because I realize how much of this is true...)

"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."

"Many of us believe we have as much of God as we want right now, a reasonable portion of God among all the other things in our lives. Most of out thoughts are centered on the money we want to make, the school we want to attend, the body we aspire to have, the spouse we want to marry, the kind of person we want to become... But the fact is that nothing should concern us more than our relationship with God; it's about eternity, and nothing compares with that."

"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."

"Joy is something that we have to choose and then work for."

"Christians are like manure; spread them out and they help everything grow better, but keep them in one big pile and they stink horribly."



Sooo, yeah, I kind of liked that book. Pick up a copy; it'll change your life.