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Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God | 
 enlarge | Authors: Francis Chan, Danae Yankoski
Publisher: David C. Cook
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy New: $9.98
You Save: $4.01 (29%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 1645
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 186
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 1434768511
Dewey Decimal Number: 248.4
EAN: 9781434768513
ASIN: 1434768511
Publication Date: May 2008
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Product Description
God is love. Crazy, relentless, all-powerful love. This sounds crazy to some: There?s a God, all-powerful and all-knowing, and He loves you. And not just any kind of love, this is the I-love-you-so-much-I?ll-send-my- Son-to-die-on-a-cross-to-save-you kind of love. And maybe it is crazy. Crazy in all the right ways. Think about it. God, the Creator of everything -- from nitrogen to pine needles; from oceans to E-minor -- THAT God, loves you. And after we rebelled and rejected Him, He loved us so much, He made a plan to rescue us so we might be with Him forever. So yeah, that?s a little crazy. But it?s true and it?s the good news that has changed billions of lives over the past 2000 years. Pastor Francis Chan, creator of JustStopAndThink.com, wants everyone to come to terms with this impossible, relentless, crazy love of God. God doesn?t want your begrudging leftovers or even your good intentions. He wants you--heart, soul, and mind. That?s why you are here. That?s why we?re all here. Don?t miss it.
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| Customer Reviews:
easily the most eye-opening book i've ever read. May 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Think the Christian life is boring and easy, think again. This book will use scripture to drain the water out of American Christianity and bring it back to the New Testament Faith of the Scriptures. Francis Chan is a rare breed today of those who are well known yet well grounded in scripture. This book isn't at all about Chan, but about God and his "crazy love" for us. Grab this book and shake your perspective. Challenge yourself and as I am, buy many more books for your friends. I went to Ghana this past summer to mission work, dare I say, this book challenged me at the same level.
Speaks the truth in love May 8, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you claim to be a Christian you MUST read this book. Francis speaks the truth in love. There are many nice books out there that do not speak the truth and there are many that speak the truth, but in a negative almost hate filled way. What is the truth? This book is based on the Bible and is the most comprehensive reference I have seem in a modern book. It is almost a catechism. BUY IT NOW. BUY 10 copies to give to your friends so you will not have to come back in a separate order like I am now doing.
A Paradigm-Shaking Book April 28, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
There are many voices critiquing the North American church today. The voices come from both within and without; from those who love the church and those who hate it. We all know that there is something wrong. But what? In many cases the prescription is the same while the cure varies widely. In his new book Crazy Love, first-time author Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, regular speaker at Passion conferences and other events, and the guy who recorded that "Just Stop and Think" evangelistic video where he walks for miles holding a surfboard, takes his opportunity to challenge the church. "This book," he says, "is written for those who want more Jesus. It is for those who are bored with what American Christianity offers. It is for those who don't want to plateau, who would rather die before their convictions do." It is a book that is meant to change the way Christians live their lives.
There are two ways of critiquing the church. We can critique out of love or out of disgust. Chan is committed to critiquing the church as an act of love. In a recent interview, when asked about the emergent church, he said this: "As a pastor I hear a lot of emergent leaders talk about what is wrong with the church. It comes across as someone who doesn't love the church. I'm a pastor first and foremost, and I'm trying to offer a solution or a model of what church should look like. I'm going back to scripture and seeing what the church was in its simplest form and trying to recreate that in my own church. I'm not coming up with anything new. I'm calling people to go back to the way it was. I'm not bashing the church. I'm loving it." And his love for the church is obvious throughout this book.
The format of Crazy Love is straightforward and effective. Chan dedicates three chapters to renewing our understanding of the character of God and seven chapters calling Christians to examine themselves. Within the book are two ongoing themes that are going to get people talking.
The first theme is that we must painstakingly examine ourselves. We cannot assume we are saved, or to use the biblical metaphor, we cannot assume that we are the good soil. Chan calls the reader to a serious self-inventory through a chapter that provides a profile of the lukewarm. He concludes, "a lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron; there's no such thing. To put it plainly, churchgoers who are `lukewarm' are not Christians. We will not see them in heaven." God wants all or nothing.
The second theme is deeply counter-cultural, going against the stream of both Christian and secular culture. It is this: live your best life later. Chan wants to see Christians living differently--living in a way that is markedly different from those around them. He wants to see Christians forgoing much of what we consider necessary, what we consider our due, in order to focus on treasures that are eternal. He wants us to get outside the realm of what is comfortable to us and focus instead on radical obedience. "God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through."
These two themes and a focus on the Scriptures serve to create a powerful and deeply challenging book. There is a very obvious commitment here to teach Scriptural principles from the Scriptures and to invite the reader to verify what he is writing from those same Scriptures. Not surprisingly, the book's weakest chapter is the one that depends least on the Bible. It is a chapter providing examples of men and women who have made radical choices to live radically different. At least a couple of examples are of people who are probably not the best examples overall because as they've jettisoned their old lives, they've also jettisoned too much good theology.
That small critique aside, I found that this is a paradigm-shaking book with a message that Christians desperately need to hear. Too many of us are living too safely and too easily. But for the brief moments we spend at church each week, we are practically indistinguishable from the unbelievers around us. This is not the way it is meant to be. The church could use a loving exhortation and Chan delivers well.
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