Session 2: Chapter 1 Readings

Session 2: Chapter 1

Read pg20/L52

"I get nervous when I think of how we've missed who we are supposed to be, and sad when I think about how we're missing out on all that God wants for the people He loved enough to die for.  I haven't always felt this way.  I grew up believing in God without having a clue what He is like.  I called myself a Christian, was pretty involved in church, and tried to stay away from all the things that "good Christians" avoid- drinking, drugs, sex, swearing.  Christianity was simple: fight your desires in order to please God.  Whenever I failed(which was often), I'd walk around feeling guilty and distant from God."

Read pg 22/L76

"To begin this journey, we'll first address our inaccurate view of God and, consequently, of ourselves.. the fact that we're lukewarm, halfhearted, or stagnant Christians. The crux of it all is why we are this way, and it is because we have an inaccurate view of God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people ple manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives. Jesus came humbly as a servant, but He never begs us to give Him some small part of ourselves. He commands everything from His followers."

Read pg 27/L118-122; "Most of us know that we are supposed to love and fear God; that we are supposed to read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know Him better; that we are supposed to worship Him with our lives. But actually living it out is challenging. 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 gotten who God really is...In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him.

Read Tozer’s quote pg 28/L129-132

I recently attended my high school reunion. People kept coming up to me and saying, "She's your wife?" They were amazed, I guess, that a woman so beautiful would marry someone like me. It happened enough times that I took a good look at a photograph of the two of us. I, too, was taken aback. It is astonishing that my wife chooses to be with me-and and not just because she is beautiful. I was reminded of the fullness of what I have been given in my wife. We need the same sort of reminders about God's goodness. We are programmed to focus on what we don't have, bombarded multiple times throughout the day with what we need to buy that will make us feel happier or sexier or more at peace. This dissatisfaction transfers over to our thinking about God. We forget that we already have everything we need in Him. Because we don't often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshipped and loved. We are to fear Him. 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."

Read God’s Attributes pg 28-33/L132-172

God is holy. A lot of people say that whatever you believe about God is fine, so long as you are sincere. But that is comparable to describing ing your friend in one instance as a three-hundred-pound sumo wrestler and in another as a five-foot-two, ninety-pound gymnast. No matter how sincere you are in your explanations, both descriptions of your friend simply cannot be true. The preposterous part about our doing this to God is that He already has a name, an identity. We don't get to decide who God is. "God said to Moses, `I am who I am" (Ex. 3:14). We don't change that. To say that God is holy is to say that He is set apart, distinct from us. And because of His set apart-ness, there is no way we can ever fathom all of who He is.

Francis Chan. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (Kindle Locations 134-139). Kindle Edition.

God is eternal. Most of us would probably agree with that statement. ment. But have you ever seriously meditated on what it means? Each of us had a beginning; everything in existence began on a particular day, at a specific time. Everything, that is, but God. He always has been, since before there was an earth, a universe, or even angels. God exists outside of time, and since we are within time, there is no way we will ever totally grasp that concept...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-dependent lives.

Francis Chan. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (Kindle Locations 142-148). Kindle Edition.

God is all-knowing. Isn't this an intimidating thought? Each of us, to some degree, fools our friends and family about who we really are. But it's impossible to do that with God. He knows each of us, deeply and specifically. He knows our thoughts before we think them, our actions before we commit them, whether we are lying down or sitting or walking around. He knows who we are and what we are about. We cannot not escape Him, not even if we want to. When I grow weary of trying to be faithful to Him and want a break, it doesn't come as a surprise to God.

Francis Chan. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (Kindle Locations 149-153). Kindle Edition.

God is all-powerful. Colossians 1:16 tells us that everything was created for God: "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." Don't we live instead as though God is created for us, to do our bidding, ding, to bless us, and to take care of our loved ones?

Francis Chan. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (Kindle Locations 157-160). Kindle Edition.

God is fair and just. One definition of justice is "reward and/or penalty as deserved." If what we truly deserved were up to us, we would end up with as many different answers as people who responded. But it isn't up to us, mostly because none of us are good.God is the only Being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that's not an appealing standard.

Francis Chan. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (Kindle Locations 167-170). Kindle Edition.