Tag Archives: C.S. Lewis

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Give Me Chastity—Just Not Yet

Read Romans 6

“Use your every part of your body as an instrument
to do what is right for the glory of God.”
(Romans 6:13)

Food For Thought… A six-year-old little girl burst through the door one afternoon, excited to tell her mother what she had learned in school that day. “Mommy, guess what I learned today?” she blurted.

“What honey” her mother replied. “What did you learn?”

Pointing to her head, the girl began to describe her first official lesson in human anatomy, “Mommy, I learned about my parts. I learned that this is my head, and it’s where my brains are.” Then she held out her hands and her looked down at her feet, “these are my hands and my feet, and they help me to do things and to go places.” Then she touched her chest and said, “here is my chest, and inside it is my heart. And it keeps me alive.” Finally, she put her hands on her tummy, and exclaimed, “and mommy, these are my bowels, and my bowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.”

She got most of her parts right, anyway. And that’s what Paul is calling us to do, to get our parts right by offering them every day in every way for the glory of God.

But do you? Is your brain an instrument to do what is right? Are the things that you allow your mind to dwell on the kind of things that will bring glory to God? If your thought life were to be played out in living color on the big screen, what kind of rating would it be given: P? PG? How about R? What? Really…you’d have to give it an X? What about the kind of things you allow to come into your thinking? Are those things—the TV shows you watch, the places you go on the Internet, the books you read—do they count as instruments of righteousness?

What about the things your hands do, or the places your feet take you? Would Jesus be comfortable doing those things and going to those places? What about your heart—have you closely guarded it, since it is the wellspring of life? And your “vowels,” I mean, your bowels—what about what you take into your body? It is the temple of the Holy Spirit, after all. How are you treating the temple, the dwelling place of God? Are you treating the ol’ bod more like a temple, or a sewage treatment plant?

Paul’s point in Romans 6 is that we have been freed from the slavery of sin in order to live in the freedom of slavery unto the glory of God. We are to be instruments of praise and righteousness with every fiber of our existence: “When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10-11)

Have you consecrated every part of your body as an instrument of righteousness to the glory of God, or are there some parts that are still doing their own thing? Far too many of us are like Augustine, who once prayed, “Oh Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” Dedication and consecration are an either or thing: You are, or you aren’t. God wants you to be totally dedicated to him, fully consecrated in mind, body, heart and energies. And he deserves it, particularly in the light of his saving grace.

You have been saved by grace—God’s unmerited favor. You have been freed from the slavery of sin; you are no longer under the threat of death—all because of God’s rich and undeserved mercy. You have been given the free gift of eternal life—all at Christ’s expense. Even the faith to believe was supplied by God. Don’t you think God deserves you, in response, to give “your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of him”? Since God has graciously done all that, the least you can do is exert your will and consecrate your whole life as an instrument of praise.

C.S. Lewis said, “The full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination.” St. Augustine finally got it; he surrendered his desire’s will to God, fully dedicating his wandering will to the glory of God. Having experienced that spirit-renovation, Augustine made this observation: “Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”

God has given you his grace. Now mount up and get going! Use your whole body—every part—as an instrument to do what is right to the glory of God.

Prayer… Oh Lord, give me chastity and continence of mind, heart, soul and body—now!

One more thing… “Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things, so the surrender to an implicit and unquestionable obedience must become the essential characteristic of our lives.” —Andrew Murray

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The Right To Be Happy?

Read Romans 5

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that
tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character;
and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint…”
(Romans 5:3-4)

Food For Thought… Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that each American, and I assume, every human being on earth, ought to have the right to the pursuit of happiness. That is a good thing, depending on the definition of happiness—which I suspect, is an inexhaustible subject that we are still trying to work out to this day, nearly 300 years later.

Jefferson said, mind you, the pursuit of happiness, but he didn’t say we had the right to be happy. Popular culture, driven largely by the modern media, has fed us the line that we have a “divine right” to be happy for a generation or two now, but I think we who follow Christ would be much better off if we were disabused of that notion.

We do not have the right to be happy! We do, however, have the right to a far better attribute: The right to be holy. Jesus Christ died on the cross to make sure of that. That is what Paul is spending a great deal of time describing here in Romans 5. In fact, Paul begins this chapter with these great words:

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2)

We have been justified by our faith. That justification came by Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross, by which his righteousness was imputed to us. Since we are righteous through Christ by his death and through our faith, we are declared holy in the sight of a holy God, and therefore secure for all eternity. By this, we rightly glory in this unshakable hope—which we might say is what true happiness is all about.

But there is more. Not only do we rejoice in this hope of the future glory of salvation soon to be realized, we rejoice in the glory of our present sufferings. Why? Because as Paul says, those tribulations loosen this present world’s grip on our loyalties and produce in us the stuff of heaven: perseverance in our faith, Christ-like character, and the unshakeable hope of eternity.

It is time we redefine happiness. True happiness is the imputed righteousness of Christ. True happiness is the hope of the glory of God. True happiness is the very tribulations that would make the normal earthling unhappy, but reminds the heaven-bound believer of that very thing: that they are bound for heaven.

That’s the happiness I want to pursue.

Prayer… Lord, help me to embrace my present sufferings as temporary reminders of your grace and my future glory.

One more thing… “If we really believe that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home,’ why should we not look forward to the arrival?” — C.S. Lewis

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Nothing Else Matters

Read Romans 1

“Jesus was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised
from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.
He is Jesus Christ our Lord.”
(Romans 1:4)

Food For Thought:… The late Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the world’s leading scholars in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history, wrote, “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.”

The resurrection is the fulcrum of our Christian faith and indeed, the pivotal point in all of human history. As C.S. Lewis said, “If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the earth.” If Jesus rose from the dead, then he is Lord of all. If he didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is useless and, as Paul says in I Corinthians 15:12-19, Christians are hopeless and to be pitied above all people.

But we believe Jesus rose from the dead. We have staked our faith, our lives, and our eternities on the scriptural and historical evidence that Jesus broke the chains of death that bound him in that garden tomb and rose again to life, thus defeating death, hell and the grave.

Since that is true, nothing else matters—Jesus is the Son of God and Lord of all!

Since that is true, we can place our trust in Jesus Christ to save us from our sins and deliver us to eternal life.

Since that is true, we can have confidence in Jesus Christ to be with us every step of the way in our earthly journey, knowing that he will never leave us nor forsake us.

Since that is true, we can experience the same resurrection power that coursed through the body of Jesus Christ coursing through our mortal bodies, enabling us to live the abundant life that he came to give us—God’s favor in the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual dimensions of living.

Since that is true, we can experience the same overcoming life that Jesus Christ lived, living above sin and in holiness to God.

Since that is true, we can boldly share the Good News with lost people of how Jesus Christ has made a difference in our lives. We do not need to be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). We do not have to be timid about our faith—in fact, if he is truly risen, to be timid would simply not be an option. If Jesus is risen, then he is either Lord of all, or not Lord of all.

Since that is true, we can place our lives squarely in God’s sovereign care, get busy fulfilling his purposes through our lives, and commit all of our energies, efforts and resources to glorifying him in everything we say and do.

He is risen! He is risen indeed! And nothing else matters.

Prayer: Lord, you are risen; you are risen indeed—and nothing else matters. Remind me throughout this day that I can live in the reality of your resurrection. Enable me today to live as if nothing else matters, because nothing else matters.

One more thing… “Our old history ends with the cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.” —Watchman Nee