Crazy Love Week 5

We all knew it was coming. We knew #crazylove would have to take us into a deeper look into ourselves. We knew the profile of a lukewarm Christian was too general to create change in us. So Francis Chan hits us with chapter 5. Serving leftovers to a Holy God. Ouch. Yikes. Oh Man....

I found it interesting that for the dreaded chapter 5, we were missing several members of the group... for various reasons, all good reasons, and understandable given how busy all of our lives are. (See Crazy Love week 4 post for more on that!) But the absence of a few left a very intimate discussion of the ones that were there...and in small group, there is absolutely nothing better than intimacy in sharing.

One of the key discussion points of the evening is the section that Chan writes "Let's stop calling it a 'busy schedule' or 'bills' or 'forgetfulness'. It's called evil." When we prioritize nearly every other thing in our life ahead of God, it is sin and evil.

For example, I have a choice every day before I go to work to 1. Pray with my wife, and 2. (At a minimum), spend some time alone with my Bible and with God. It is so sad that most days, I choose to leave for work without doing either. Yes, I choose that, maybe not in my thought process, but certainly in my actions. Sad.

Chan also uses the metaphor of swimming upstream. To be a Christian, you are constantly swimming upstream. It is a constant battle against the world, against the flesh, and against ourselves. Someone posted the other day that only dead things float with the tide. Interesting thought, is it possible to take short "breathers" on our journey? Some R&R for a few weeks a year? What are your thoughts on that?

So Chapter 5 is done, and we survived, hopefully with the insight in our ability to make the necessary changes in our lives to allow God to be our top priority. One would think this would be easy since we just experienced Easter.

Crazy Love Week 4

Small group met again to discuss #crazylove, chapter 4 -- the profile of the lukewarm Christian. If you have read the book, you know how humbling this chapter was. The video discusses the concept of being lukewarm, and asks you to go through the scriptures listed in the chapter and pick out the one that spoke to you. There was great conversation throughout the night and one gentleman in the group freely admitted he was lukewarm. This followed with several other people admitting it also. Now let me tell you about this group. We are all parents of teenagers. So we are BUSY. All our kids are completely over committed with sports and school and extra stuff. And we all want to be so highly involved in our kids lives that we don't want to miss things they participate in.. so we coach them, and we watch them play golf, and tennis, and baseball, and volleyball, and softball, and basketball, and you get the idea I am sure. Most of us also have younger kids that have to follow along...so basically we are all exhausted ALL the time. Anyway..

So the scripture that spoke to me the most, and I spoke up during group and told everyone, was Luke 14:34-35. This passage talks about salt losing it's saltiness and not even being good enough for the manure pile. Pretty depressing...I am so lukewarm that I am not even good enough to be tossed into the manure pile... powerful stuff...

Through the course of the evening, I commit myself to do better. I WILL get up and read my Bible, I WILL be extra nice to my wife, I WILL follow up and talk to my small group members just to say hello, I WILL be the leader of my family...well, let me just say thank God for GRACE! Not the church, but the actual grace that draws us closer to Him. the kind that allows me to be lukewarm for a little while, maybe through this season of life, The grace that helps me understand that my primary ministry is to be a father to 4 sons, a husband to one wife, and a child of one heavenly Father.

Crazy Love Week 3

Small group met again Saturday night to complete #crazylove chapter 3. Another great chapter and we are excited to begin moving into week 4: the Lukewarm Christian. Our lesson got a late start when the Butler-Florida game went into OT. Leave it to Butler to never make it easy!
Back to chapter 3.... it is all about the love of our Father. The relationship we had with our earthly father tends to dictate the relationship we have with our heavenly father. The video for this lesson is the best one yet!

We had great discussion about relying on God and trusting God. All the things that we typically fail at every day and need to work at. We need to make a conscious effort to be in relationship with our Lord daily. We talked about our struggles of reading our Bibles every day and our prayer lives.

Looking forward to week 4!

Crazy Love, Week 2

Our small group continued our study of #crazylove last weekend. Chapter 2 is all about how God can call us home at any minute. We had some great discussion about regrets and highlights of life. We all were saddened by people that we know that have committed suicide, and this put a somber note for awhile. We are all excited to get into the "meat and potato's" of the study as we move into chapter 3!

But the main thing that I was thinking about when reading and discussing chapter 2 is in regards to the traveling men. What would happen if you died in your hotel room tonight? What would your wife see when she came to collect your things? Would she be proud of what you had in your room or what you may have been doing when you died? I know alot of guys who travel for their work. I know alot of guys that have "company sponsored affairs". I know alot of guys that do things when they are away from home that they would never ever do at or near home. Travel is liberating, and those men that live a double life while away from their wife have lost their foundation of love and support.

The temptation to misbehave is so strong. Satan is so good at what he does. Don't let him in. I am not saying you need to sit in your room with the computer off, the TV off, and your phone off. I am simply saying that the battles you face are spiritual battles, and we need to allow Jesus to fight them for us. This is hard to understand and hard to do, but He is there with you. Every day and every night.

Crazy Love

The small group I belong to started a new study tonight called "Crazy "Love" by Francis Chan. This study seems promising to push us into a deeper relationship with the Lord. Chapter 1 was pretty foundational, discussing the attributes of God our Father. Good Stuff though. Chan seems so authentic, and one person in the group said she thought he was the real deal -- I would agree. I heard he walked away from pastoring his church because he was hearing his name mentioned more than Jesus' name. How many people walk away from a good gig like that -- not many that I have heard of. And of course he gets criticized for it... but I digress as always..

The point is that I am excited to be studying something! I am thinking we will tackle "Radical" after we finish crazy love..

So tonight's post has nothing to do with traveling men, sexual sin, or anything like that -- just a quick little post to share my excitement about small group!