You like the title hey? Can you guess which one you are? Can you tell me which one you want to be? Well, let me talk to you a little bit about the two and which one I want to be and this may come as a surprise! You guessed it, CRAZY.
God’s 1st and 2nd commandments are Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and his 2nd command is to love your neighbor as yourself.
I want to have a crazy love for God rather than a civilized love. A civilized love is kind of what we have in this day in age in the church. A lot of comfort, inner community, and a love for God that only shows up mostly on Sundays. Crazy love is the kind of love that the early church had. Crazy love is radically passionate about spiritual transformation, about reaching the non-believer and about having great community and relationships/friendships in the local church. Once again like i said in my STALLED blog. You have to OWN your own spiritual life. Take a look at the early church’s methods (Acts 2:42) They Devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, sharing meals and prayer. Devotion is a deep word and I don’t believe God chooses his words lightly.
First let’s take a look at civilized love. Sometimes as new believers we find ourselves taking crazy spiritual risks, trusting God in financial decisions, in life decisions. And God can work with that. But sometimes we get to a point where we feel comfortable and everything is going good so we just want to put our life on coast. We lean away from the risks, the Crazy Love for Jesus and being spiritually transformed like we had been. We are comfortable so we become more civilized. We are real casual about our Christianity and our Love for God and his work. We show up on Sundays, give our usual tithe, not even listening for God’s voice on if he wants us to give a sacrificial amount, we may even have devotions every morning. We have all been there, I definitely have and I think in the church it is time we make a decision that we want!, want!, want! that Crazy passionate love and desire for God and his work. I know I do. So we saw that civilized love is real casual and kind of a Sunday kind of love.
Now let’s look at the Crazy kind of love. The kind the early church showed us. They Devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, and prayer. They would go out and teach and be tortured for it. They would be stoned, and and not the kind of stoned we think of today, the old school kind of stoned haha. They would be sawed in half and boiled in oil. That is a crazy kind of love for God and his work. Now a days if we get a negative facebook comment or a little gossip, it can ruin our whole week. I mean come on, look at the GAP between the Crazy kind of love they had in the Bible and how these words really meant something to them, everything actually and how us the church today have made it real civil like and proper.
John 13:34-35 says “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
This Crazy kind of passionate for the things of God kind of love is what is going to transform you (Romans 12:1,2) and through you transform the world around you. This Crazy passionate love for God is how the world will know you are Christ’s disciples. That crazy kind of love is the kind of love that will move you to do anything God is putting on your heart even if it is a spiritual risk taking, even if all sensibility says that doesn’t make much sense. This crazy kind of love can only come if you decide for yourself, that is what I want. I want that passionate kind of love for God in my life. I want to be radically devoted to Jesus in my life. I want to fully and passionately be a part of this fellowship and community that we have at our local church. I want to reach the non-believers by daily showing them grace and love. And maybe you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and that is the Risk you want to take today. Even if your head is telling you not now and is giving you an excuse, your heart is telling you yes, this sounds like the Crazy passionate love that I want and need in my life.Then go ahead and say this “God, i want you and need you in my life. Jesus I accept your free gift of salvation and thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. God I want to be passionate for your call on my life. I want what you want for me here on earth. In Jesus name Amen”
This Crazy kind of love only comes when you decide, I truly want to be passionate for you God and nothing else really matters except for your will in my life.
Jon Rouse 