Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, by Francis Chan

There are lots of reviews already on this book, it has been out forever, but for whatever reason I just now got around to reading it.  What an absolutely fabulous book.

Francis Chan does a powerful job of reminding us of the Love that Christ has for us and the Love that we should have for Him.  When you are crazy in love you will do anything for your loved one. You will go to any lengths to protect them, to champion them, to tell others about them.  So, if that is true why do we not act this way in regards to our Lord and Savior?  Why is it that we are "in love with God" but nobody around us knows that.  They don't see any silly grin on our face, or joy in our walk, or excitement in our speech or a relentless need to tell everyone we meet about Him.

I loved the part in the book where Francis reminds us of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in his name and teaching them to obey everything that he has commanded.  That's it.  That's our task.  But Francis says, "it seems that most Christians live as though the next line in Matthew would be, unless of course that is asking a bit to much, if so, then it's OK to live a lukewarm life and not tell others about me, it's fine, you still get into heaven."  Is that how you live your life?  Is that how you feel about God's love towards you?  Do you think that living for Jesus is a bit to hard and so you want to water it down and just do the best you can and believe that it is enough to get you into heaven?

Francis further states, "Lukewarm living and claiming Christ's name simultaneously is utterly disgusting to God.  And when we are honest, we have to admit that it isn't very fulfilling or joyful to us, either."  What a profound statement.  Our lukewarm living is utterly disgusting to God.  When you make it to heaven do you want to hear from God, "Welcome to heaven, oh by the way I found the way you lived your life disgusting!"  How ashamed would you be to hear that?  If so, then why do we live that way?

God's response to this idea of lukewarm living came in the book of Revelation in Chapter 3 when he was addressing the church at Laodicea.  He called them lukewarm but said to them, "Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."  Francis in response to this verse writes, "His counsel wasn't to 'try harder' but rather to let Him in.  As James wrote, 'Come near to God and he will come near to you."  God wants to abide with us and wants us to abide in Him.  Jesus wants to be able to introduce us to the Father and say, this is one of my faithful servants, the job he did was well done.

The whole book, "Crazy Love" is filled with concepts, statements and Scripture that reminds us of our first love, that of our love for God and how we should live our lives in response to that first love.

You will be challenged to readdress your love relationship with Jesus Christ and to honestly evaluate whether your relationship has grown lukewarm and thus disgusting to God.  Remember the Lord said, I would rather that you be hot or cold, not lukewarm.  My suggestion is that you take another look at your life and determine to live it as one who is on 'fire' for the Lord and thus 'hot' rather than to be dull, boring and lukewarm about your relationship with your Savior.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.
Enjoy!