GUEST POST: C.S. Lewis

(I'm spending the last few days of 2010 seeking the Lord's will on what this blog should be about in 2011 so I am taking a break from writing this blog and am featuring a few of my favorite devotional writer's instead this week for your enjoyment. If you have any insights or comments about what you like or dislike about this blog I welcome your input.)

CHOOSE NOW, CHOOSE WELL by C.S. Lewis
Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil?


Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough?

Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when.

But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.

I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side.

God will invade.

But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does.

When that happens, it is the end of the world.

When the author walks on the stage the play is over.

God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to concieve - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will  have any choice left?

For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.

It will be too late then to choose your side.

There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up.

That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not.

Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.

God is holding back to give us that chance.

It will not last forever.

We must take it or leave it.

-from Mere Christianity

GUEST POST: This Terrible Duty

Sometimes living every day with Jesus means doing the hard things. Christ did them, and He expects us to do them. But He doesn't ask us to do them in our own strength. Instead He empowers us with his Holy Spirit.

One of the things I do to live every day with Jesus is to pray each morning, and read my Bible and a devotional book like Streams in the Desert or A Year With C.S. Lewis. These things edify my spirit and help me to have a more Godly attitude as I interact with others. Without this morning anchoring of my soul to the eternal God, my ability to show kindness and the love of Christ is greatly diminished.

Praying in the spirit with groanings which cannot be uttered, infuses my being with fresh, holy energy. Reading the quick and powerful words of God, lobs off the excess weights of bitterness or agitation that try to choke my psyche. And once my spirit is engergized and free of cloudy, carnal thinking I can drink wise words of wisdom from such spiritual giants as C.S. Lewis.

I wanted to share C.S. Lewis' thoughts on forgiveness with you today because it is an area that I often have to revisit and refocus on. So below is his post humorous post as it were.  I hope you enjoy it, and take something away from it that will help you live everyday with Jesus with joy.

THIS TERRIBLE DUTY by C.S. Lewis
[One of the most unpopular of the Christian virtues] is laid down in the Christian rule, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Because in Christian morals 'thy neighbor' includes 'thy enemy', and so we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies.

Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. "That sort of talk makes them sick', they say. And half of you already want to ask me, "I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?'

So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my relgion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do - I can do precious little - I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' there is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms.

-From Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Rats in the Cellar

C.S. Lewis (one of my all time favorite authors) talks about having rats in the cellar of our inner self. This concept of digging deep into ones heart and mind has been weighing heavily on me lately. Who am I really? What kind of Christian woman would I be if my cognitive skills were diminished and I was no longer able to filter my reactions through common sense and the Holy word?

My impassioned goal is to be so full of Jesus Christ and His holy word that even if I didn't know my own name, I would be a sincere and loving Godly woman. I have dreams of being so saturated with scripture that if you were to just touch me, like one would touch a sponge, all that would come out with be Bible verses. Oh God, make it so in me one day!

Time is running out for me this morning, so I will leave you with this excerpt from C. S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity:

" We begin to notic, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that I was caught off guard, I had not time to collect myself...
On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. Surely, what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light."