Crazy Love

I just finished a study on the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. If you haven't read it - you should! It is a quick, but very challenging read. Although I feel that I've always known that "Jesus loves me", truly grasping what that means and how I should respond if I claim I love Jesus is something that has taken a lot of time (something that I am still learning and will continue to learn throughout my life I am sure). Reading this book helped put in perspective how extremely selfish and hypocritical we are as a culture, and especially as Christians. When I call myself a Christian, I am saying that I love God - that He sent His only son to live a sinless life and to then die on a cross for ME - so that I can live and be forgiven, and live forever in eternity with my Savior. How easy it is to say that and just keep on living the way that I do... but if I sit and truly let that sink in and try to grasp even a hint of what that really means, how can I go on living the way that I do?? Yes, I know that we are all sinful creatures and will continue to sin, and that we live under God's grace. None of us can be perfect, but we are called to imitate Christ - striving each day to be more and more like Him. This book is an amazing resource to help in understanding what a Christ-like life can look like and what kinds of big things can be done through normal, everyday people. Chan says, "...when you're wildly in love with someone, it changes everything." Does loving God change EVERYTHING for Christians - for me? Or do we still blend in and look much like our unsaved neighbors? What am I doing to radically be different? So I wanted to record just a few realizations and goals that I have right now, in hopes that I can look back on this in two weeks, two months, etc. and remember what I learned throughout the past couple of months. So that I can use this post as a reminder of how I want to be different.

1. Spend significant, quality, daily time in the Word, studying and learning more about Christ. Who am I to think that all of the trivial things that I "have" to do are so significant that I can't pause and spend time with my creator?
2. Pray. Prayer is not a "waste of time", prayer is powerful and important and essential. I spent an hour in prayer this past week for our church - we have an event going on the week leading up to Easter where someone is praying at church every hour, 24/7 leading up to Easter. It was truly amazing to spend an uninterrupted hour in prayer.
3. Look for opportunities to serve people around me. Sometimes it is easy to use young children as an excuse for not being able to serve more. But what better time to serve? I can show my children what it means to live a life of service, even if through small things.
4. Serve regularily at our local church.
5. Fix my attitude and practice patience. When I think about my daily life, I realize how incredibly selfish I am - with my time, money, thoughts, etc. I need to ask myself daily what my motives are, check my words before they come out of my mouth, and stop worrying about what I want or think I need. I need to ask myself often if what I am doing is glorifying to God.