"Revised & Updated Edition! God is love. Crazy, relentless, all-powerful love. Have you ever wondered if we're missing it?

It's crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe—the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor—loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss. Whether you've verbalized it yet or not, we all know something's wrong.

Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn't working harder at a list of do's and don'ts—it's falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same. Because when you're wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.
Learn more about Crazy Love at www.crazylovebook.com.
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A pastor and church planter based in San Francisco, Francis Chan speaks to tens of thousands of people around the world every year. Known for his passionate, biblical style, Chan is on the board of World Impact and is the author of Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Crazy Love, which has sold nearly two million copies."

Quoted material in this section is from the book's Amazon sales page. The bulk of my review will be in the "further comments" section below.

Christians, people who want to know what a real Christian pastor who lives by the Bible thinks.

The whole book. It was great.

Meet the author.

Convicted, glad, hopeful, thankful.

"About the Author
Francis Chan has been a pastor for over thirty years. He is a New York Times–bestselling author of several books, including Crazy Love, Letters to the Church, and Until Unity. He and his wife, Lisa, have been married nearly thirty years and coauthored You and Me Forever. Currently, Francis and his family split their time between ministry and church planting in Northern California and Asia." Quoted material in this section is from the book's Amazon sales page.

It was a great, inspiring read.

Years ago, a pastor friend recommended this book to me. I wasn't interested in reading anything with the title "Crazy" though, so I didn't read it. I didn't even give it a second thought, even when it soared high on the best seller lists and I saw frequent mention of it in the media.

I started a Christian ministry certification program recently though, and this author, Francis Chan, was the teacher of the first course (I'm still working on the first course, in case you're wondering). I was really impressed with him and his heart for the Lord. This book was on the suggested reading list, so I decided to go ahead and buy a copy, because I wanted to support him (the course is free) and suspected that I'd want to make notes and highlight things, which, of course, I can't do with a library book.

I did in fact make many notes. I think I'll come back to this book and read it more times in the future too. It was a fantastic read. I loved the author's passion for the Lord, the Bible, also known as the Word of God, and how he and his church applied it.

The story of his family's journey and the stories of other people who loved the Lord wholeheartedly and sacrificially were especially interesting and inspiring to me.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.”

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.”

“We never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.”

"When we love God, we naturally run to Him-frequently and zealously. Jesus didn't command that we have a regular time with Him each day. Rather, He tells us to 'love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' He called this the 'first and greatest commandment' (Matt. 22:37-38). The results are intimate prayer and study of His Word.”

“Joy is something that we have to choose and then work for.”


Even though this is an older book, it's still doing fairly well on the Amazon bestseller's list, with being #42 in a category (at least I think that's good), here are the stats as I copied and pasted them the evening I wrote this review (Marhc 19, 2025):
"Best Sellers Rank: #89,934 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
#42 in Christian Discipleship (Kindle Store)
#310 in Christian Spiritual Growth (Kindle Store)
#370 in Christian Discipleship (Books)"

It currently has an average 4.8 stars with over 6,000 Amazon reviews and 4.2 stars on Goodreads reviews.

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Created Mar 19, 2025 at 10:44pm • Submit your own review...