Crazy Love

Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

By Francis Chan

In his book “God is the Gospel”, John Piper essentially asks whether we are in love with God:

“The critical question for our generation – and for every generation – is this: if you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever have had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”

How many of you will read those words and say, “You know, I just might be okay with that”?

(Chan 2013, 100)

Imagine going for a run while eating a box of Twinkies. Besides being self-defeating and side ache-inducing, it would also be near impossible – you would have to stop running in order to eat the Twinkies. In the same way, you have to stop loving and pursuing Christ in order to sin. When you are pursuing love, running toward Christ, you do not have the opportunity to wonder, “Am I doing this right?”, or “Did I serve enough this week?” When you are running toward Christ, you are freed up to serve, love, and give thanks without guilt, worry, or fear. As long as you are running, you are safe.

But running is exhausting – if, that is, we are running from sin or guilt, out of fear. (Or if we haven’t run in a while.) However, if we train ourselves to run toward our refuge, toward love, we are free – just as we are called to be.

As we begin to focus more on Christ, loving him and others becomes more natural. As long as we are pursuing him, we are satisfied in him. It is when we stop actively loving him that we find ourselves restless and gravitating toward other means of fulfillment.

(Chan 2013, 104)

Giving that is not motivated by love is worth nothing. Paul says from this kind of giving we “gain nothing”; however, when we give results not only in heavenly compensation, but also gives us great joy in our lives here and now. As we love more genuinely and deeply, giving becomes the obvious and natural response.

Taking and keeping for ourselves becomes unattractive and imprudent.

Remember the story where Jesus fed thousands of people with one boy’s small lunch? In that story, according to Matthew, Jesus gave the loaves to his disciples and then the disciples passed them out to the crowd. Imagine if the disciples had simply held onto the food Jesus gave them, continually thanking him for providing lunch for them. That would’ve been stupid when there was enough food to feed the thousands who were gathered and hungry.

But that is exactly what we do when we fail to give freely and joyfully. We are loaded down with too many good things, more than we could ever need, while others are desperate for a small loaf. The good things we cling to are more than money; we hoard our resources, our gifts, our time, our families, our friends. As we begin to practice regular giving, we see how ludicrous it is to hold on to the abundance God has given us and merely repeat the words “Thank you.”

(Chan 2013, 110)

A friend was faithfully giving 20 percent of his income to God, and Suddenly his income dropped drastically. He knew he had to decide whether he should continue to give in a way that proved he trusted God. It wouldn’t have been wrong to lower his giving to 10 percent. But my friend chose instead to increase his giving to 30 percent, despite the income reduction.

You can probably guess how the story ends. God blessed his faith and gave him more than enough, more than he needed. My friend got to experience God’s provision firsthand.

When it’s hard and you are doubtful, give more, or, as Deuteronomy says, “Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake” (15:10 NRSV).

Maybe you have already made sacrifices. If so, you have seen that in some ways it gets easier, doesn’t it? You have witnessed the benefits of giving and are blessed because of it. But it gets harder to. The temptation to level off increases with each passing year. Pride tells you that you’ve sacrificed more than others. Fear tells you it’s time to worry about the future. Friends say you’ve given enough, that it’s someone else’s turn now.

But Jesus says to keep on and you will see more of God. Do we really believe that “it ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our final day”?

When Jesus sent out his 12 disciples (Luke 9:3), he told them to “take nothing for the journey – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic.” Why do you suppose he said this? Why not let them run home and grab a few supplies? Why not allow them to bring some money along just in case?

Jesus was forcing his disciples to trust him. God would have to come through for them because they had nothing else to fall back on. This place of trust isn’t a comfortable place to be; in fact, it flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught about proper planning. We like finding refuge in what we already have rather than in what we hope God will provide. But when Christ says to count the cost of following him, it means we must surrender everything. It means being willing to go without an extra tunic or a place to sleep at night, and sometimes without knowing where we are going.

God wants us to trust him with abandon. He wants to show us how he works and cares for us. He wants to be our refuge.