Monday, April 7, 2014

work vs. trust


And now, an excerpt from "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis:

"No one knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. 

This is an obvious lie

Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to talk against it, not by lying down...We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside use until we try to fight it.

...

I know the words 'leave it to God' can be misunderstood, but they must stay for the moment. The sense in which a Christian leaves it to God is that he puts all his trust in Christ: trusts that Christ will somehow share with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His birth to His crucifixion: that Christ will make the man more like Himself and, in a sense, make good his deficiencies. 

...

But the difficulty is to reach the point of recognizing that all we have done and can do is nothing.

You could not 'stop trying' in the right way and for the right reason until you had tried your very hardest. And, in yet another sense, handing everything over to Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus, if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. 

Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you."

Let me explain briefly the implications of such a statement in my life at a time like this. My fellowship has been listening to a sermon series by Charles Price on combining truth with faith. Basically, I have been wondering what it means to live out the mind-blowing statement that is the Christian life--adopted and sanctified yet not quite there yet. Does that mean we shouldn't try? Everything we do is going to fall short. Does that I mean I should try with everything I have even though I know it won't buy me salvation or grace? Am I even growing in my faith? How can I know when I'm there yet? Lewis is saying a simple and profound truth:

It is our perspective that is to change. We don't try less because we "trust in God" and just leave it all in His hands without a care in the world. We trust and act with the knowledge that what we do is in obedience to Him. Most importantly, we do these things because He is ALREADY working in us.

I hope that made sense. Because in my weary, exam-ridden mind it made perfect sense. I have what I call "achy-joint syndrome," which is basically that feeling you get when you're about to come down with a cold and it may or may not be messing with my head. I also ate too much garlic at dinner in the hopes to ward off vampires this cold and my breath is so repulsive at the moment that I am too distracted to study, hence this crazy, long post.

Alright, off to down the Tylenol and call it a night. Til next time.

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