God Is Crazy ….About You!: Finding the Truth About the Real Jesus & Falling in Love with Him

By Steve Johnson

Do you hunger to experience the love that the first disciples felt? Are you tired of just doing more and more, rather than having a love affair with God? Are you burdened with guilt? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you.

Be prepared to be blown away by the whole truth of Gods love. Through careful Bible study, stories, and illustrations you will learn the whole truth. You will see some Bible verses that preachers have never taught you and learn what the true gospel is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490870540

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Copyright © 2012, 2015 Steve Johnson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless Otherwise Notated All Scripture is Taken From The New International Version, ®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Zondervan Press 1984 & 2011 Editions. Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-7053-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7055-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7054-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902642

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/8/2015

Contents

Introduction

How This Book Came About

Section 1

Accepted and Loved Having Right Standing With God

Chapter 1 God, The Amazing Lover

Chapter 2 God’s Love Song: When God Sings about You

Chapter 3 Man’s Problem: Finding Meaning, Fulfillment, & Purpose (The Effect Of Sin)

Chapter 4 Love’s Purpose

Chapter 5 Love’s Problem

Chapter 6 Love’s Plan: (The Solution)

Chapter 7 Grace and Responsibility

Chapter 8 Grace and Struggle (The Reality of Our Fight with Sin & Temptation)

Chapter 9 Smokey the Dog, The Prodigal Son, and Our Passionate, Loving God

Chapter 10 God IS Love Part 1

Chapter 11 God is Love Part 2

Chapter 12 God is Love Part 3

Chapter 13 Justification, the Lost Treasure of the Church: Righteousness is Relationship

Chapter 14 Christmas is Good News: A Christmas Sermon in July?

Section 2

Getting Better and Better Practical Application of This Grace for Living And How to Daily Obey (Without the Guilt)

Chapter 15 The Power of Grace: How to Obey Using God’s Power

Chapter 16 Liberating Your Inner Elephant

Chapter 17 Grace and Guilt

Chapter 18 Questions That Need To Be Answered

Chapter 19 Questions That Need To Be Answered Part II

Chapter 20 Forever In His Grip: Eternal Security and Assurance of Salvation

Chapter 21 The Ultimate Guilt Buster & Power for Life: Ephesians 1, The Greatest Chapter In The Whole Bible

Chapter 22 Clearing Away the Confusion

Chapter 23 Some Concluding Thoughts

Introduction

Hope, the healing balm of grace, encouragement for a weary soul, kindness, mercy, and perfect unconditional LOVE: a love greater than you could ever imagine; that’s what this book is about. One songwriter put it this way, Streams of mercy never ceasing.¹ God is like a river of love, mercy, and joy that never ceases, but just keeps flowing into our lives. But we have to accept it by faith.

This book is for those who have an oversensitive conscience, for those who need to hear about mercy and forgiveness, are haunted by guilt, and don’t need anyone telling them their sins because they could provide a list ten pages long. This book is for those who crave unconditional love and have just a little bit of faith that it might actually exist in this universe. This book is not for the person who wants to hear more about guilt, damnation, and lists of rules. For they know about this all too well. This book is for those who struggle and need hope. This book…..is for me. It is for me and anyone else who needs to be freed from the shackles of shame and the heavy burden of guilt, only to be loved by a God Who has revealed Himself in The Person of Jesus Christ.

Don’t misunderstand me. This book is Biblical, very Biblical. It is thorough and comes from years of reading, studying, and searching out The Scriptures while praying for God to reveal Himself to me. This book is balanced and holds to the absolute Truth and Holy Standards of The God of The Bible, and yet proves that the majority of this Bible is more of a love letter than anything else. The Bible says, It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace (Hebrews 13:9-10). Did you see that? God says it is good for our hearts to be strengthened by learning more and more about His grace. It is God’s will that we be strengthened by learning about His love and mercy. It is not watered down. Nor is it people pleasing, but it is the will of Almighty God that our hearts be healed, and then grow strong through grace. Grace will make our hearts stronger, not weaker. We all need to hear the message of grace. Jesus also said those who are forgiven a lot will love a lot." (Luke 7:47- my paraphrase)

In other words; the more you choose to experience Jesus’ forgiveness, mercy, and grace; the more you will love God and people. Do you get that, I mean really get that? God says it, not me. It’s in His Bible that our hearts need to be strengthened by learning about His saving love that is found in Christ Jesus. It is God’s will that we learn about His grace, and this will strengthen us. In fact this IS how God strengthens us – by teaching us grace, mercy, and love found in Jesus. Some people want to get busy about teaching the law (which does have it’s purpose and is God’s Word). But they misuse it. They guilt people, beat them over the head with the Bible. God says that what will make us stronger is….in a word…Grace! I didn’t say that God did.

I am a Christian, not because I am strong, but because Jesus has shown Himself to be strong through me despite my weakness. I am a believer, not because I am so righteous, but only because Jesus’ righteousness covers my sin and teaches this sinner to be (and act) righteous. My faith is not so strong and I am not courageous but I run to the One who fans the dying flames of my faith into a raging furnace, and Who lifts me up and speaks boldness into my soul. I am needy and He is generous. I am weak but He is strong. And I have learned the secret of, NOT trying harder, but just letting His life flow through me. Well, actually I am barely learning, and am still in the process of learning the reality of Christ as my life.

For those of you who are thirsty for God’s love, hunger for His grace, and long to be stronger and go farther, this book is for you! For those of you who, even though it is a doubt filled faith that is smaller than a mustard seed, but still believe that there must be a God who is Love; this book is for you. Come hungry! Fill up on His love. Allow yourself to be convinced once and for all that He loves you and will be everything you need, if you only allow Him to, if you only believe (even just a tiny step of faith). Join me on this journey as we discover the same Jesus that transformed the cowardly Peter, who denied Jesus, into the courageous Peter who preached to thousands and was willing to die on a cross hung upside down. Join me as we discover the real Jesus who turned sinners into saints and caused whole countries to be turned into loving, kind, generous, and forgiving people that could love their enemies, feed the poor, and change the world. Come, with all your doubts and all your sins.

You don’t have to be religious! You may never have stepped foot in a church. Maybe you’ve never read the Bible. It’s ok. The one thing that qualifies you is being a sinner who needs help, who needs to be loved, who is ready to experience real joy, and who is willing to take a step out of his/her comfort zone. Maybe you don’t even believe this stuff, but something inside you wishes it were true. I challenge you to open your mind and take a chance, risk looking like a fool. If you do, you will discover the most amazing love, power, life, and peace that is infinitely more than you could possibly imagine. Let’s start on the path together. What do you say?

People think that if you teach too much grace people will become disobedient. NO! The Bible says, The grace of God teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness. (Titus 2:11). They are scared that if you really teach people that God loves unconditionally and that once you are saved by Christ it is forever; that people will start sinning. NO! Listen to what GOD says, The love of Christ motivates us. 2 Corinthians 5:14 (my paraphrase, motivation is, I believe the real meaning in the Greek and the heart of this verse). Not damnation, fear, or being beaten over the head. Grace doesn’t make you go out and sin. God’s love, Paul says, motivates you to be holy. Now, knowledge of God’s holiness and of hell do have their place but ultimately God wants to save people, make them His children, and love them forever – through Jesus. So Grace, Mercy, and Love makes us holier. Embrace Jesus’ grace today!!! It will give you life! To God be the glory through Jesus His wonderful, saving, Son. So again I ask you, what do you say? Will you join me and learn about the true Jesus? Are you willing to take a risk, a step of faith to find real love?

¹ Robinson, Robert. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Robert Robinson. 1757. Public Domain.

How This Book Came About

The formation of this book has an amazing story behind it. I had pastored a church for about a year. Great things happened and people got saved, but after one year God moved me on. It was a confusing time and I began to pray. I prayed, God what is your will for me? God began to put on my heart to write a book about grace, about His unconditional love, a message to awaken the church again to the joy of The Gospel of Jesus."

At first I thought, This is crazy. I had never written a book before, but I had spent years writing blogs, speaking to crowds, writing songs and performing; my mind always brewing with thoughts of how to convey the Message of the Gospel. So the thoughts and concepts were there for years, but just not in any order.

As the desire became stronger and I felt it was truly God Who was giving me this desire, I decided to tell my wife. Now my wife is the most kind, sweet, supportive and godly woman on the face of the earth. But I am usually the dreamer and she is usually the more practical one. I thought she might think I was just dreaming up another big dream.

To my shock and surprise the answer I got from her was not at all what anyone would expect, it was a supernatural confirmation. She said, Honey I have been praying about this for a long time. God told me to pray that you would write a book. But He told me not to tell you, because if I told you then it would be me putting the thoughts in your head instead of God. But God put on my heart that if you came to me and said that you wanted to write a book, then it was truly His will and Him putting that desire in your heart.

Well my jaw dropped to the floor. I was amazed. I have rarely experienced such a clear, supernatural confirmation from God. Knowing that God had put on her heart for months to pray for this convinced me that this was His will.

So here we are now. These are the words that God put on my heart to share with the world. These Scriptures have been boiling in my heart to share with others about the true radical, shocking, nature of God’s love and grace. It is bigger than you could ever imagine, He’s more tender than you can comprehend, and He’s more merciful and good that your mind could ever grasp.

I hope you are embraced by His grace and that when you read this you will be loved by God, sensing His embrace, loved beyond your wildest dreams by The God Who became human, experienced every trial and pain that we go through, and ultimately died in our place (took our death, our punishment) so that we could truly live. So drink it all in, let your heart be open to experience the greatest love in the universe.

Section 1

Accepted and Loved

Having Right Standing With God

"Eph 2:4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

Eph 2:5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."

"Tit 3:4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,

Tit 3:5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, Tit 3:6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, Tit 3:7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."

2Co 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

CHAPTER 1

God, The Amazing Lover

Jesus! What a Friend for sinners!

Jesus! Lover of my soul;

Friends may fail me, foes assail me,

He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Refrain

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Hallelujah! What a Friend!

Saving, helping, keeping, loving,

He is with me to the end.

Hymn – Words by J. Wilbur Chapman,

Music by Rowland H. Pritchard. 1830

and Revised in 1910. Public Domain.

I have Good News for you. God loves messed up, needy, and sinful people, despite their faults. God loves and adores dysfunctional and broken people who have made a mess of their lives. He is the healer of broken lives and wants to make you whole because He is so in love with you. When I say that, I mean God IS CRAZY ABOUT YOU! He’s madly in love with you, and longs for you. That’s right He’s madly in love with you! He is head over heals in love with you. He is wild about you, crazy about you, and love crazed over you. Do you do bad things? Are you a sinner? God loves you; He absolutely adores you and wants to embrace you, give you a bear hug, kiss you on the neck, and dress you in royal robes! You are precious to Him and He delights in you, yes you. God loves you just the way you are, sin and all. God loves us just as we are, but He also loves us too much to leave us in the lost state we are in. He longs to give us life, freedom and joy! He can make us whole and holy. Understand, this is an invitational love to come to Him through Jesus so He can be your Father (Abba, Daddy, and Papa – using Biblical terms). Look at this Bible verse that shows God loves sinners, This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15, NLT). This is an invitation to come to Jesus and then have a relationship with your Heavenly Father. Then after (and only after) that, His Spirit comes inside of us and we learn to quit doing things our own way and let Jesus be Lord of our life; for Him to be our guide, our strength, our help, and our lover. But it happens by faith alone in Christ alone. We simply trust Jesus to save us and He does. He cleanses us and gives us new life.

Jesus will live inside of you and give you an abundant life of joy, love, and peace (John 10:10). It is like the marriage covenant. Jesus is the most loving groom ever and we get to be His bride. He wants to forgive you, liberate you from your addictions, and even free you from your bondage to sin, and have a relationship with you; just so He can lavish you with love and with a great & passionate affection!! And He will cause you to not only be loved, but to love God and love man as well (with His kind of Love). But He loves you now, just as you are; a sinner. He loves you! God loves you! You may be a drug dealer, murderer, liar, or rapist but God loves you and is saying, Come to me and let me love you, cleanse you, heal you, and make you into something beautiful. Let my love and life fill your heart. When you run to God by faith in Christ, you will find He isn’t mad at you but will embrace you, love you, and fill you with His Spirit.

Now someone may object! Steve you are going too far. Oh really? First of all we have to agree 1) If we are both Bible Believing Christians Then The Word of God is His Inspired and Perfect Revelation and 2) His Word is the LAST Word. You and I can be wrong but God’s Word is true. Have you read the Gospels lately? Let’s take a look:

Luke 7: 36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them… 48 Then Jesus said to her, Your sins are forgiven.

Luke 5: 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors (tax collectors were traitors and the equivalent to the mafia, very sinful) and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?31 Jesus answered them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

In Mark 2:17 the same thing happened Jesus was eating with sinners and the Pharisees complained. Pharisees were the very religious people who knew a lot about The Bible but nothing about Jesus or Grace. A grateful woman, who was probably a prostitute, recognized love, forgiveness and life in Jesus. She ran to Him (smart lady). Jesus said It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. When is the last time a drug addict or prostitute ran to our churches to admit their need of help and forgiveness? Maybe we are not preaching the true Jesus.

In John’s Gospel, Chapter 8, a woman was caught in adultery! The Religious Pharisees wanted to kill her by stoning her. Jesus said in verse 7, He who is without sin (i.e. if you’ve never sinned and you’re perfects then you) throw the first stone. They all left because they knew, although on the outside they were religious, on the inside their hearts were just as lustful and sinful. Jesus told this woman that 1) He did not condemn her and 2) He forgave her and 3) He freed her to go and sin no more.

We’ve given examples about women. What about men? Jesus saw the greedy tax collector Matthew, the extortionist, the mafia member, the traitor, the thief, and He said, Follow me. (Matthew 9:9) He invited this evil man to become a disciple!! He, in effect, said, Yes I can change you and make you one of my preachers, a great world changer – that’s what My power and love can do! And when Jesus calls us He sets us free from our sins. Jesus unconditional love, the fact that He reached out to Mathew (also called Levi) filled Matthew’s heart with a love and joy; a faith that caused him to leave behind his rich and lavish lifestyle and follow the One who had this infectious joy about Him.

We all know the story of Zacchaeus. He wasn’t just a tax collector but a Chief tax collector. In an article by Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio he comments, Tax collectors have never been popular. But in Roman Palestine, they were particularly hated because they collaborated with the foreign oppressors. It’s understandable that the Jews felt about the same animosity for the Romans, as the French did for the occupying Nazis in World War II. But the Roman system of tax farming" made tax collectors especially despised. The Romans wanted to collect as much tax as they could without tying up their own personnel. So they recruited locals and gave them a percentage of what was collected. The more they could wring out of the people, the more they could keep.

So these blood-suckers profited off their countrymen’s misfortune. In so doing, they helped raise the funds necessary to finance the brutal repression of the chosen people by the pagans. Obviously, these dogs were beyond the pale, repugnant to all decent God-fearing people, the ‘enemies of God Himself’, or so they thought."¹ But what did Jesus do? He said, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. Luke 19:⁶ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.⁷ All the people saw this and began to mutter, He has gone to be the guest of a sinner."⁸

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.⁹ Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. That is His mission: to seek out, hunt down, and love & save the lost. He, in effect, said to Zach, Hey I want to hang out with you and be your friend, your Lord, your Savior, and your life. I love you and you are my creation. I want to set you free. Jesus entered this gangster’s house and something about His love just melted away Zach’s greed. His greed was replaced with love, the greatest love imaginable. The joy and laughter of Jesus set him free! Has the church lost the joy of the True Gospel of GRACE? But back to you and I! What about God and us?

You are His artwork and made in His image! (Genesis 1:27). Malcolm Smith (Bishop of Zoe Community of The Holy Spirit) used to say on his radio program, You are who you are by the artist who put you together. He would go on to say that, What makes a famous painting, sculpture, or piece of art valuable is the signature of the artist. If someone found a lost painting from Leonardo Da Vinci it would be worth millions! Why? It is because he is a world renowned artist. The painting would be valuable based on the greatness of the artist and the quality, the beauty of the art work. The Mona Lisa is valuable, the statue of David is valuable, and the Sistine Chapel is valuable. And get this, you are valuable. You’ve heard the slogan, God don’t make no junk. Well it’s true and you are valuable to Him!! You have dignity and great worth because you are God’s artwork, made in His image. We may have tried to damage the art through sin but we are still valuable. I could take a Da Vinci painting stow it away in a warehouse and it could collect dust. Just because it gets covered with dust and dirt, that does not devalue the art. Our sin may taint us but we still have value because we are made in God’s image.

We are His artwork and His masterpiece. As humans we are both sinners and God’s artwork. We have, not only depravity (great sinfulness), but great dignity! We have worth! We are so valuable to God that He thought we were worth the shedding of Jesus’ blood, so that He could redeem us. It is true that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have broken His commandments and need His forgiveness. We need to run to God and ask for His mercy. But when we do we find that He embraces us and freely gives us mercy for our unrighteousness and forgiveness for our sins.

Let me put this another way. A preacher once gave a brilliant illustration on this topic. He had a $100 bill. He announced, If I were to give this to someone as a free gift would anyone like to take it? Immediately all hands in the room went up. He then proceeded to wad it up and wrinkle it. He asked, Now it’s all wadded up, does anyone still want it? Again everyone raised their hands, eager to get a $100 bill. He then threw it on the ground and stomped on it and again he asked, Do you still want it even though I stomped on it and it’s all dirty? And again everyone raised their hand. He then proceeded to explain. We are like this $100 bill. We are valuable.