VALidations

Mere Christianity , Book Two What Christians Believe, Chapter 5 The Practical Conclusion "The perfect surrender and humiliation were undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man."  I would change the past-tense "was" to present-tense "is" but CS Lewis was the Oxford professor of English, not me!  Jesus is God and He is man.  But the point is that Christians who share in Jesus' surrender and humiliation (admitting that we are imperfect to say the least and must surrender our lives) will also share in His victory over death and have new life.  How is this possible?  How can Christ put His new life into us?  Lewis believes there are three things that "spread the Christ-life to us": baptism, belief, and communion.  This is one point from which the many "denominations" of Christianity disperse.  I personally believe that the only way to receive new life in Christ is by simply believing i...

Not a single soul born on this planet has been spared suffering...not even God's perfect and blameless Son, Jesus.  Thank you, Lord, for sending Jesus to suffer with us on this planet, so that we are never alone. The Hurt and the Healer (Mercy Me) Why? The question that is never far away The healing doesn't come from the explained Jesus please don't let this go in vain You're all I have All that remains So here I am What's left of me Where glory meets my suffering I'm alive Even though a part of me has died You take my heart and breathe it back to life I've fallen into Your arms open wide When the hurt and the healer collide Breathe Sometimes I feel it's all that I can do Pain so deep that I can hardly move Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You Lord take and hold and pull me through So here I am What's left of me Where glory meets my suffering I'm alive Even though a part of me has died You take my heart and b...

Mere Christianity, Book II What Christians Believe, Chapter Four  The Perfect Penitent If Jesus was not a crazy person or a liar, then we are left with only one possibility.  He was in fact who He claimed to be: God in human form.  But why?  When He was alive, He did do a lot of teaching, but Christians will tell you that the main reason He came was to suffer and die, and then be raised from the dead.  Believing this is the foundation of Christianity.  Every Christian, regardless of his or her denomination, believes that Jesus was God, and that He died and rose again, and that this single unimaginable act somehow put us right with God.  That, in a nutshell, is Christianity. Now, there are many different theories out there to explain how  Jesus' death and resurrection put us right with our Creator once again, and defeated death (and the devil) for all time.  But please remember that these theories are not  Christianity.  "The cen...

Mere Christianity, Book II, Chapter 3, The Shocking Alternative Christians believe that the devil is real, and that he is a fallen angel.  This causes some difficulties.  If God is good, why would something He created go so horribly wrong?  If He is all-powerful, why allow Satan to do any harm, and if He is all-knowing, why create him in the first place?  Lewis proposes that these difficulties are the price to be paid for free will. He responds to the question, "How can anything happen contrary to the will or a being with absolute power?" with this example: "It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, 'I'm not going to go and make you tidy the school-room every night.  You've got to learn to keep it tidy on your own.'  Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate.  That is against her will.  She would prefer the children to be tidy.  But on the other hand, ...

Mere Christianity, Book II, Chapter 2, The Invasion We are actually going to talk about two other ideas about how the universe operates: Christianity-and-water and Dualism.  Please remember I am not a philosophy or world religions expert.  I am just doing my best to follow what Lewis is proposing here.  If he is wrong, I wouldn't know, so please inform me if he is mistaken on his explanation of these philosophies. He ended the last chapter by explaining how atheism is too simple.  He also believes the "Christianity-and-water" view to be overly simple.  This view says that God is good and everything is great, leaving out the stuff nobody likes to hear about sin and hell and the devil (and also, therefore, redemption).  He calls atheism and this idea "boy's philosophies."  Pretty harsh, huh? Lewis then goes on to describe how real things are not simple.  If something is too simple, we are often suspicious of it, are we not?  He gives an ...

As promised, here is the next section of  Mere Christianity.   Book II, Chapter 1, The Rival Conceptions of God In this chapter, CS Lewis explains what he believes are the divisions of humanity as far as what people believe about God.  The first paragraph is one of my favorites, and something I've not heard many Christians say (at least not in this particular way), so I thought I'd include the whole paragraph in this post. "I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe.  If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through.  If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.  If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.  When ...

Don't worry, I will be getting back to Mere Christianity  next time, I promise.  But tonight I can't sleep until I write down the things that won't turn off in my brain.  After writing my last two posts, sharing with you my doubts and fears, I feel like I HAVE to share what I've learned.  It wouldn't be right to leave this one hanging.  So, here goes: God is VERY real.  He is more real than ANYTHING.  How have I come to this conclusion?  Well, that is pretty much impossible to put into words, but I suppose I should try.  I guess the process could be described by Jeremiah 29:13 "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."  In my own words, I think God was getting fed up with me doubting Him, and showed me how absurd those thoughts are.  He kind of said, "Seriously?  How can you even say you aren't sure about me?"  I don't think it is wrong to have doubts and that you should just blindly accept ever...