I love C.S. Lewis, as you may have noticed. I’ve spent a lot of time reading & rereading The Chronicles of Narnia, but I’m just now diving into who he was as a man and some of his other writings. I am finishing up Mere Christianity. (book review coming soon) Highly recommend checking it out! But in order to stop myself from reviewing it right now, I’ll get to where I am going.
Sometimes I see the atrocities in this world, and it’s very hard not to just be disappointed. I look at things like the oil spill in the gulf, and I wonder why the earth has to suffer. I think about the people in the world struggling to have enough food, and I’m sad. And I’d love fix everything that is broken, but wonder if there is anything I can really do. Even in my own life sometimes the joy, peace, power, and confidence promised me by God are at times so attainable…and at other times just out of reach. This week, the Lord has really be challenging me to see the world from a broader prospective.
Lewis writes:
“Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God. A statue has the shape of man but is not alive. In the same way, man has the ‘shape’ or likeness of God, but has not got the kind of life God has.”
Such an interesting thought, we are “made in the image of God” ; yet we are not God….rather, a beautiful picture of worship to Him.
“The David”
A lot of things go wrong when we think we are God. Take my life for instance, a lot of anger and bittereness and ugliness fosters inside of me when my life doesn’t “turn out” the way I think it should. I quickly become angry at myself for failing, others for getting in way or not serving my needs, and especially God for not fulfilling some promise that he never really made me. Somehow I always make God into a weak, servant “god” that somehow makes me comfortable. So what’s reality? God didn’t promise me a life of ease and zero speeding tickets. And the pain and hurt in the world isn’t from Him, rather it’s a result of a fallen, broken world. God begets God. God is good. Sin begets brokenness, pain, and hurt.
Check it out.
Genesis 1:1-3 ” In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”
Genesis 2:7 “…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
But then sin entered the world, people wanted to be like God….and part of the result of that…
Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
You see, in the beginning, it was the Holy Spirit of God that created life and existence. When we were created, made from the natural dust, God breathed that His Spirit inside of us. Now we could live forever, eternally in friendship and intimacy with our amazing creator. But we did the very thing we always do. We try to make ourselves our own gods. We wanted what we wanted, instant comfort and control, never looking at the big picture. And we lost the very life inside of us, the breath of life.
Decay, disease, death entered the world, entered us.
Humanity was always striving to become clean enough to enter into God’s Presence again, reaching for God. Always failing, never faithful.
Then there was Jesus.
“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:5-8)
And the whole point of Jesus’ death and the cross, was the to make a way again for life. You see, yes, our debt was paid…but more than that, Christ’s righteousness now blankets those who believe. That is why, we must make Him King of our lives. That is why we must turn our lives completely over to God. Don’t you see, we must reject our sinful nature to rule ourselves. It is the very essence of sin, the very thing that killed us and broke His heart of love.
It is when you put your faith in what HE did, you receive your life back.
When Jesus ascended back into Heaven, He didn’t leave us to once again suffer this broken world. Now His Spirt dwells in our hearts. It’s just another step in our restoration? Jesus isn’t just up in Heaven floating on a cloud, playing a harp! He’s making the next step possible, while we carry out His mission on this earth by the power of His Spirit.
The next part of the plan:
Revelation 21:1-5
“…Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them…”
One day the work will be complete.
What does this mean to you?
-If you have not put your faith in Christ, do so. Jesus is not a fairy tale, this is the greatest story, it is the story of the whole universe.
-If you have put your faith in Christ, is He your King? Or do you still live your life as your own. Open your eyes to the greater picture.
-If you are suffering on this earth, Jesus’ work is not finished. He has not left you as an orphan. He sees you. He is not the cause of your suffering, in fact, He is your only hope!
“ And this is what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.” — C.S Lewis
Also, check out the latest North sermon by clicking here for more on this topic.
awhitestoneblog
Great post! I love C.S. Lewis!
“So what’s reality? God didn’t promise me a life of ease and zero speeding tickets.”
I address this in my testimony blog post “My Valley”:
…God never promised that we would always be happy when we have Jesus as our savior; instead he uses Paul’s testimony to tell us that Christians can have hardships far beyond our ability to endure. Through these hardships; God wants us to fully rely on him so that he can deliver us and heal us.
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-11…
God wants us to draw us into a closer relationship with him. He will always rescue us but sometimes it is in the midst of our hardships. He doesn’t always remove us from circumstances but allows us to go through them in order to draw us nearer to Him.