I'm finally finishing reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan for the first time. I have a lot of thoughts and things to say about it that I will not go into now.
As I was talking to a friend of mine that had started the study on the book that is out there, and the comment was made that this person stopped doing the study because it was too radical. They just weren't comfortable with it.
This seems to be the general attitude of much of the American church (at least that I've come into contact with). Either we like the ideas that Chan throws out and we sit back and nod our heads (and no change occurs) or we criticize the ideas because of how extreme they are. The first category I can understand better because I myself have been guilty of this. But those in the latter category astound me. Reading the Bible one has to wonder how we ever got anything other than a radical faith. (please understand I'm not talking radical like Westboro Baptists or the Crusades. Rather a fully committed life to Christ and his teachings that defies modernism's wisdom or understanding)
It deeply saddens me to see this attitude in friends and acquaintances. But even more so I am grieved by how much of a struggle it is for me to actuality that with which I sit nodding in agreement. it's time to do something that would count, something that when God looks and sees, he will experience pleasure. Are you with me?
It raises the question: are we "Christians" because we are committed to an organized system of beliefs and values, and committed to helping others and to our church?
Or are we Christians because we've made Christ the ruler of our hearts and are loving Him? The second begets the first, but the first, on its own, begets only death.
