Chapter 7: Your Best Life Later

Chapter 7: Your Best Life… Later

Chapters 1-5: Recognizing our need for a crazy kind of love for our Savior and recognizing the stumbling blocks for doing so

Chapter 6: Characteristics of a crazy kind of love relationship with our Heavenly Father

Chapter 7: Characteristics of a life lived for the Lord

Francis asks the question on page 114, “What does running toward Christ and pursuing Love look like in daily life?” You are either swimming towards Him or not.

A life lived for Christ, a life that bears the fruit of a crazy love kind of  relationship with Him, would have the following characteristics:

Faith.

·         Francis says that having faith often means doing what others see as crazy. Why is this?

·         Read Hebrews 11:1. This “hall of faith” chapter chronicles the examples of some of the most faithful people in the Bible, and yet Francis reminds us that they were imperfect, regular people just like us.

o   Hebrews 11:32-34. Faith that produces “good” results (Jericho, Red Sea parting, Abraham & his son Isaac)

o   Hebrews 11:35-38. Faith that produces the “best” results (the martyrs, “too good for this world,” verse 38).

·         So HOW do Christians today play it safe? I believe it is as Francis says, we WANT to put ourselves in situations where we are safe “even if there is no God.”

·         We have to do things that cost us during our life on Earth but will be more than worth it in eternity.

·         We can have Hebrews 11 kind of faith because our God is the same God that empowered all of those regular, imperfect people.

Love.

·         The ultimate example of love is found in Christ. 1 John 3:16-20

·         John asks pointly, can we love Christ and not help others in need?

·         Matthew 25:45, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did NOT do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

·         How would our lives change if we actually though of each person we came into contact with as Christ?

o   How would it change how act towards those that are “hard” to love?

·         Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:40 that we show tangible love for God in how we care for the poor and those who are suffering. He expects us to treat the poor and the desperate as if they were Christ Himself.

·         God didn’t give just a little for us; He gave his best—Himself. According to 1 John 3:16-20, it is no different for us: TRUE LOVE REQUIRES SACRIFICE…”our actions and truth” (verse 18).

Giving.

·         How can we as Christians give?

·         Money obviously.

·         Time (Phillip’s rice demonstration)

o   John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave…” There is an obvious connection between love and giving.

o   It doesn’t say that God contributed a portion or a percentage, but He gave Himself.

·         Giving that is not motivated by love is worth nothing.

o   As we love more genuinely and deeply, giving becomes the obvious and natural response.

·         Jesus feeding the five thousand; how ridiculous would the story have been if the disciples had held on to the food Christ blessed? Would thanking and thanking and thanking Him made it less ridiculous? Of course not!

·         But this is what we do when we fail to give freely and joyfully.

·         Is it intimidating to think about giving radically and liberally? What percentage of believers would “sell their possessions and give to the poor” (Luke 12:33)?

·         What do you think about the guy that donated his house to the church and moved in with his parents J ? hehehe….

·         What about the friend who gave 30% instead of his normal 20% after losing income?

·         Luke 9: 1-3. Why do you suppose that Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to return home for money and supplies?

o   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.

·         Giving involves surrender, and this is part of the cost of following Christ.

Are we living lives “characterized by comfort” (page 124)? Read bottom of page.

What does it mean to “spend” ourselves as he points out from Isaiah 58? The thing that matters most in THIS life, and the NEXT, is how we use what we have been given, not how much we make or do compared to someone else. What matters is how we spend ourselves.

Hebrews 11:39-40.

Click here to watch the chapter 7 video.