4-25-09 (Saturday)

I woke up early this morning (not being able to sleep...on a Saturday?) to make a pot of coffee and spend some quiet time with my Savior. As I have told you before I am reading a book by Francis Chan called "Crazy Love". This book has really challenged me to think what it means to be a true Christ follower (Christian). As Christians are we obsessed with loving God and others?

Check this scripture out: When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. (Luke 14: 12-14)

Wow, do we give to those who are less fortunate than us expecting nothing in return? This is exactly what our savior did for us and he has asked us to do the same for others...Crazy Love.

Frederick Buechner writes in The Magnificent Defeat:
The love for equals is a human thing-of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing-the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing-to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy-love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.