Mere Christianity.

After a semester of a chapter here and a chapter there, I finally finished C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. Mission accomplished. So many golden nuggets in that book. Instead of trying to state everything I learned from that book (because first of all, if you haven't read it, you need to; second, it would take forever), I just want to go over one small interesting thought that this brilliant man leaves the reader with. In his last chapter "The New Men", Lewis tries to describe the transformation that occurs when an individual gives his or her life to Christ.

We read in the bible that Christ talked about losing and finding yourself. As Christians, we are supposed to lose ourselves in Him in order to find ourselves. Alright, so we set aside "who we are" (our dreams, goals, desires, where we find value, and what not; these things that define the individual), and fill that space with Christ, his goals and desires. Lewis states that the logical conclusion of all this would be that we are being transformed into little "christs", all exactly the same. Woah, there! Not so, he claims.

Lewis goes on to give an analogy of what happens that I find extremely interesting. Here is a rough paraphrase: Salt has a very strong flavor. One would think that adding it to a food would make the food taste just like salt; however, rather than change the flavor, the salt brings out the natural flavors in the food so that they are more defined. The salt makes the food even more brilliant with a richer, more unique flavor.

"The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become."

When Christ comes into the life of an individual, a beautiful thing occurs. That person is filled with His Spirit and can now be who he was made to be. No longer is he confined and bound by natural, sinful desires, his upbringing, societal norms, etc. He can be fully who he was made to be, a being unique and loved by God, fearfully and wonderfully made to be in a loving relationship with his Creator.

It is so interesting that mankind tries so hard to be the same. We try to fit in, yet, at the same time, strive for individuality. We are swayed so much by culture and the norms we were raised with. Peer pressure, not just a term reserved for middle schoolers. How could a God who created such individuality, so that not one man's genetics are the same as any man before or any man after, desire us to strive for "sameness"? We have an incredibly creative Creator.

How do we find who we are made to be? By losing ourselves in Christ. It begins to make some sense in my mind. Thank you, Clive Staples.

"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

Be soft.

I can be somewhat of an idealist at times. This can be both a good and a bad thing. When I focus too much on the imperfection of the world, it causes me to be very critical of all those around me and often leads to cynicism. That's the bad end. When I let my idealism enable me to empower those in my circle of influence towards what is good, right, and noble, that is the good end. So often, I find myself on the wrong end of the spectrum. It is so easy to become hardened when one sees the darkness that man inevitably and constantly gets caught up in. 

How do we keep ourselves soft? How do we remain feeling and sensitive to the needs of those around us? I find it to be easier to hide myself in a hard bubble of a cynical attitude. How do I break that? 

I realized that I can't.

I cannot be released from this on my own. It's my protection from the hardness of the world. I will always be drawn back into it. The only way I can break free from this is by being pulled out of it and attaching myself to something more firm and unbending, and yet infinitely loving. Something transcendent of the darkness. Something that gives light and life.

How do I remain soft in the hardness of the world? By firmly planting myself in the love of God. Being filled to overflowing with His goodness that I cannot be hard towards the world which is in such need of Him. I can no longer hide in my bubble of judgment because I see that I am being pulled out of the same mire as the rest of mankind. 

What makes this world beautiful? I could say all the normal Christiany things such as, "well, God created it" or "it reflects His beauty", both of which are completely true. But what makes this world uniquely beautiful to me? Because it is the one place where we see such incredible contrast between darkness and light. I am able to see the pit of despair I have been pulled out of, and the hope and joy I have been brought into. It was the contrast that brought me to Him, but it is He who keeps me ever seeking His truths.

My encouragement for the day is to be soft. Make it a point to remain sensitive, feeling, and caring for even those you may see as the worst of mankind. Because in reality, we are all lost sheep trying to find our way. 

Infinitude.

This last Sunday, I was an extra for a video promo that my friend is doing for my church. He told us to sit down in the chairs or couches that were set up and act like normal. I decided to sit on a couch and read a book. I randomly grabbed one of the books off a shelf, picked a random chapter, and started to read. I just so happened to pick this wonderful book titled The Attributes of God by A.W. Tozer. Absolutely beautiful. Here is a portion of what I read that I think is incredibly powerful:

"Infinitude is an attribute of God. And it is impossible for God to be anything and not be completely, infinitely what He is. It is possible for the sun to be bright, but not infinitely bright because it doesn't have all the light there is. It is possible for a mountain to be large but not infinitely large. It is possible for an angel to be good but not infinitely good. Only God can claim infinitude. When I say that God is good, that God has a kind heart, I mean that He has a heart infinitely kind and that there is no boundary to it. When I say that God is good-natured, good and kindly of nature, I mean that He is infinitely so."

How do we reason that God is infinite in such a way, that whatever He is, He is infinitely so?

Job 11:7-9 "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above--what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below--what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea."

1 Kings 8:27 "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!"

Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

If God is so unfathomable, how can we even begin to understand Him? An unanswerable question, I think.

Like all theologians, Thomas Aquinas tries to shed some light on the enormity of God's person. In one of his proofs for the existence of God, he makes an argument from the gradation of human values. If someone or something is good, there is something greater.

"Things are said to be more and less because they approximate in different degrees to that which is greatest. A thing gets hotter and hotter as it approaches the thing which is the hottest. There is therefore something which is the truest, the best, and the noblest, and which is consequently the greatest in being." -Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

God is that which defines our human values. He IS goodness, mercy, justice, truth, and so on. How do we even dare to call ourselves sons and daughters of a God so infinitely powerful?

Our God may be a complete mystery, a fathomless ocean of magnitude and power, but he is also good and loving. If He is infinite in all his attributes, like my good friend Tozer claims, then He is infinitely merciful, infinitely gracious. This is what causes Him to give Himself to redeem us. And for that, I am forever grateful. How can I not attempt to climb the great mountain of discovering who He is when I begin to see such incredible truths as this?

Everything.

I have noticed that my Facebook feed has come alive with links to blogposts and videos. So long status updates. I have been reading different ones that my friends have posted, and I came across this one about waiting for your future spouse. Here's the link if you would like to read it:

I Don't Wait Anymore

The point of my blogpost is not to discuss how one might get a future spouse...but I thought that she had some good points about what it means to follow Christ. Many of the things that she mentions are lessons that I have been fed throughout my life. Things such as, "If you delight in the Lord, He will you give the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4), and that means that when you desire God enough, He will give you a husband. I know that these lessons my Sunday School teachers and youth leaders taught were meant to keep hormonally-charged girls from giving their hearts to any boys who showed them attention, and I'm sure that they had many positive effects on me as well as others. However, I agree with this fellow blogger that these might not be the BEST messages to be feeding into young girls. We, as women, were not made solely to find a husband and settle down. Our purpose in life is to glorify Christ through our lives while being in relationship with Him. Shouldn't that be the message we are spreading constantly through word and deed? 

"Christ is the source of everything we need and the giver of all good gifts … but in telling people about Him, it’s possible we’ve sold them on a solution for life’s problems and not life itself."

How true those words are. I have come to realize that a lot of modern evangelism tools focus on "getting people to heaven" and "saving them from hell", rather than helping them to recognize the gloriousness of who God is and what it means to be redeemed and reconciled unto Him. Is being a Christian really about what we can get from God? About a deal we make with Him? 

No.

It's not.

It's about who He is. God of the Universe, Redeemer of our souls. He is the definition of holy, good, power, majesty. Christianity is about recognizing these things, realizing that He is all that matters. YET, we cannot know God because of our sin. We cannot know His holiness, goodness, power, and majesty because of who we are in our sin. There is a separation there that cannot be overlooked or tolerated. This is why Christ died on the cross. Because He loves us. Because He IS good, powerful, and mighty. Because He IS love. 

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." - 1 John 4:8-10

It's all about Him.

Not about the deals we can make with Him, or what we get out of it. It's all about who He is.

This has changed my whole perspective on life. If this is the way that I view the world, then everything I receive from Him is a complete blessing, undeserved. If He is what fully satisfies my soul, everything else is extra luxury. 

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I haven't intentionally been thinking about what it means to be thankful, as maybe I should during this season, but it seems like God decided He would show me anyways by teaching me these things. 

What does it mean to be thankful? What is the secret to being truly content? 

Realizing that it's not about us. 

"The happy life is this - to rejoice to thee, in thee, and for thee." - St. Augustine, Confessions.

Stars.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?"

Psalm 8:3-4

The Scandal.

I often hear, "How can someone be eternally damned because of one tiny sin? How can someone deserve ultimate punishment for something as little as "borrowing" a cookie from the cookie jar?" It seems to be a question that comes up often, and one which I have struggled with myself. How can a good God justifiably damn someone for eternity for even the smallest of sins?

I was listening to a sermon a couple weeks ago by David Platt. If you haven't read his book Radical, I highly recommend it. In this sermon, he was speaking on Isaiah 6 where Isaiah is brought before the throne of God. This passage describes the gloriousness of God, seated on the throne in all His majesty. It's an amazing picture of God's might. Platt describes this in such a way that one cannot help feeling the awe that this scene demands. He lays this foundation in order to share some truth about who God is and what our response to Him should be. One quote that struck me hard as I was listening was this:

"It is not about how small or large we would measure sin. What is significant is the greatness of the one who is sinned against. You sin against a rock; you are not very guilty. You sin against a man; you are guilty. You sin against an infinitely Holy God, and you are INFINITELY guilty and deserving of infinite destruction."

That is some hard stuff to swallow. We don't want to think that way. Whether you agree with this or not, I think he brings up a good point. When we measure the magnitude of our sin, we are in some ways justifying it. "Oh, but it's only a white lie." NO. It's not. When I think of the goodness, the righteousness of God which cannot be measured, cannot even be fathomed, any sin, no matter how small or how insignificant it may seem, is a defile thing to do before one who is so infinitely holy. He is so far the opposite of that "small" sin. Isaiah 55:9 ESV "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

This is why the cross and resurrection is so incredibly scandalous, so amazingly miraculous. It is absolutely mind-blowing that God would send His beloved Son to not just live in this broken place called Earth, but that He would die for these people who are so phenomenally guilty and profoundly sinful and take that punishment that we completely deserve upon Himself. Crazy. That's some crazy love right there.

As Platt says, "We have a scandalously merciful Savior."

And boy, what a scandal.

If you have time, please take a listen.




Redeemed and Unashamed,

Delissa

Pronunciation: Dzo-ay

For the past two years or so, this word has been constantly influencing my life. What its definition is, what it means, how I can attain it, etc. Let me just share with you this beautiful word.

ζωὴ: zóé

In the New Testament Greek Lexicon:

life of the absolute fulness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic "logos" and to Christ in whom the "logos" put on human nature; life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.

And in Strong's Concordance of the Bible:

2222 zōḗ – life (physical and spiritual). All life, throughout the universe, is derived – i.e. it always (only) comes from and is sustained by God's self-existent life.

Wow.

This word.

This is the life that Jesus speaks of in John 3:16. Everlasting or eternal life seems to be a vague concept, just out of our grasp of understanding. What if it's not? What if it's as simple as a life fully devoted to God? Well, that's all fine and dandy, but what does that mean? What does that look like?

This summer, a good friend of mine shared with me a verse in such a way that I will be forever changed by it. The joy and awe this friend had in sharing this verse with me has marked my heart.

John 17:3 (ESV)

"And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Pure and simple. THIS is eternal life. Not forever being in the beautiful, wondrous place of heaven with our dear ones forever. KNOWING God. That is eternal life. For it would take an eternity to know Him.

I can't help but be completely dazzled by that knowledge. To know my God, it would take an ETERNITY of relationship building. I'm a huge fan of developing relationships. It's one of the most difficult things in life, but the MOST rewarding to spend your time and energy on. So to think that my eternal life will be spent in relationship with and getting to know and understand this beautiful, glorious God...WOW. I love this.

I literally could talk for days about this one word and what it means for my own life as a follower of Christ. However, I will save sharing those thoughts for another day. In the meantime, I have made this blog to use as a tool to share truth, light, and joy to whoever stumbles upon it. Hopefully, it will be just that.

Blessings and peace,

-Delissa