Live In The Tension

It's "both and," people, not "either or"!

HT: Christine Caine

Lewis on Christian Living

C. S. Lewis' Top 5 Tips About Christian Living by Holly Mthethwa at Crosswalk:

Simply put, Christian living is God’s way of living. We could make an endless list of what a Christian does and doesn’t do. 

It would likely include things such as: read the bible daily, pray daily, love one another, or attend church. And, while all of those things are highly important aspects of living life God’s way, it often helps to look at some specific ways we can live a Christian life in direct relation to the obstacles we’re facing today. 

C.S. Lewis, a well-known apologist and Christian thinker, wrote well before our time, but he wrote highly applicable and practical truths about Christian living that still ring true today.

While Lewis provides a wealth of wisdom, here are five tips relevant in today’s age taken from his book “Mere Christianity.”

A Christian living in any era, but especially in today’s age: 

1. Possesses True Humility 

“True humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.” –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

We have a Gospel message and a Gospel mission, and we’re walking the tightrope between promoting a message that points to Jesus and promoting ourselves. While not always bad, we’re living in an age where self-promotion, selfies, and self-help books are prevalent. We battle with either thinking too highly of ourselves or not thinking highly enough—both of which consume us with “self.”

Lewis’s words are beautifully simple and powerful. To be truly humble, Christians must think of themselves less.

2. Chooses Truth Over Originality 

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

We’re told to just “be you” by nearly every person we encounter. And, while it’s important to remain true to oneself, we can become consumed with being unique, original, or different. 

I love Lewis’s advice: when we simply tell the truth according to scripture, we become original without ever noticing it. A Christian in today’s world chooses truth over originality.

3. Pursues God Over Happiness

“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Whether I’m logged online or driving in the car, I’m confronted by people, places, and things promising happiness. I want to be happy—we all do—so I often find myself chasing the next thing I believe will make that happen. If I can just {fill in the blank}, I’ll find true happiness.

The Christian living in today’s age chases God over the pursuit of happiness. Catching glimpses of God becomes more important than grasping feelings of happiness. The irony is that it’s when we seek God that we experience true and lasting joy. 

4. Understands Progress Often Means Turning Back

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Turning back or turning around is essentially the definition of repentance, which means to turn away from sin and turn to God. 

In today’s world, we applaud progress. We want to climb higher, faster, longer. We blaze ahead, often knowing we’re going in the wrong direction. We know that if we make a wrong turn, the GPS will re-route us.

The Christian living in today’s world knows that the man who realizes he is on the wrong road and turns back soonest is the most progressive.

5. Listens to the Holy Spirit

“It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.” –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

We’re busy, we’re overwhelmed, we’re stressed, and we’re anxious. We listen to our to-do lists, our well-meaning friends, and ourselves. 

The Christian living in today’s world—the one who truly wants to live for Christ—pauses to listen to the Holy Spirit every moment of every day. She slays busy and stays quiet, even among the chaos.

As always when we talk about living a life that reflects the fullness of Christ, it’s important to remember that it is only by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that we’re able to live a life pleasing to God.

No Duh!

From @GodFruits.com

No Backing Down From Truth

HT: Alliance Defending Freedom

From the recent international colloquium on “The Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage,” in Rome, Alan Sears said this quote stood out most to him. Find out more: http://buff.ly/1ycidej — with Sophia Hayden.

Grounded and Settled

O God Almighty,
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
grant us, we pray You,
to be grounded and settled in Your truth
by the coming down of the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

That which we know not,
do reveal.

That which is wanting in us,
do fill up.

That which we know,
do confirm.

And keep us blameless in Your service,
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

- Clement of Rome

HT: Kingdom People

At the Center

"There is nothing in the Gospels more significant than the way in which Jesus deliberately places Himself at the very centre of His message.

He does not say with other teachers, ‘The truth is everything, I am nothing’; He declares ‘I am the truth.’ He does not claim, with the founders of certain ethnic religions, to suggest answers to the world’s enigmas; He claims to be the answer — ‘Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.’ He does not offer the guidance of a code or a philosophy to keep men right through the uncertainties of an unknown future; He says, ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ "

— James S. Stewart  A Faith to Proclaim  (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2002), page 122

HT: Of First Importance

Evidences You Are Living in Gospel Community

From Tim Brister - Evidences your church family is a gospel community: You know you're living in a gospel community when:

• believers practice confession instead of trying to make an impression

• people are defined by a lifestyle of repenting rather than pretending

• you embrace truth at all costs, not agreeing for each others approval

• light exposes & wounds and love covers & heals – both/and not either/or

• people are happy to be holy not content to be comfortable

• you own your mess because of His mercy instead of hiding them because of your shame

• functional saviors & heart idolatry are lovingly confronted & challenged by Christ’s reign & rule

• unbelieving sinners & believing sinners together look away from themselves & look to Jesus

• the pleasure of God in Christ to save you liberates you to passionately serve others

• hospitality is given to those on the margins & those not like you are welcome in your world

• individual preferences take a back seat to community purposes of loving God and neighbor

How do you (we) measure up?

Fatal Confusion

"Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms. . . . Confusion here is fatal."

                    - J. I. Packer

   

Authentic

"Spiritual experience that does not arise from God’s word is not Christian experience.… Not all that passes for Christian experience is genuine. An authentic experience of the Spirit is an experience in response to the gospel. Through the Spirit the truth touches our hearts, and that truth moves our emotions and effects our wills. "

— Tim Chester and Steve Timmis,  Total Church  (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), pg 31

HT: Of First Importance

Beautiful Truth, Beautiful Goodness

"Truth and goodness need beauty. Truth claims divorced from beauty can become condescending.  Goodness minus beauty can become moralistic. to embrace truth and goodness in the Christian sense, we must also embrace beauty...." - Pages 28-29

"...But when the beautiful is severed from the absolute (God), what passes for beautiful can be anything and everything - which is to say nothing.  There really is a profound connection between the loss of beauty and the loss of meaning..." - Page 30

""The cross is a beautiful mystery - a mystery where an unexpected beauty is in the process of rescuing the world from its ugliness. Beauty will save the world."  Page 31

From Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the Beauty and Allure of Christianity, by Brian Zahnd

Truth & Alienation

“When a man sets himself against God, he sets himself against his own truth, and therefore does not become free, but alienated from himself.”

    -Pope Benedict XVI

Hat Tip: The Anchoress

Living in Grace & Truth

 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17 ESV)

" If I am full of grace, there is no excuse for legalism in my life (Matthew 23:4, 11:28-30).

If I am full of truth, there is no excuse for unrestraint (licentiousness) either (Matthew 5:17-20, John 8:11).

The only reason to live legalistically or licentiously is unbelief in the adequacy of the indwelling Lord Jesus Christ who freely supplies grace and truth for my every need.  Or an unwillingness to let him be himself - full of grace and truth - in and through me."

                -Jon Walker, Costly Grace, page 21

Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything

More awesome stuff from Tullian Tchividjian:

Jesus plus nothing equals everything–the gospel– is daily becoming for me more than a theological passion, more than a cognitive reality. It’s becoming my functional lifeline! And it’s this rediscovery of the gospel’s power that is enabling me to see that,

Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak;

Because Jesus won for me, I am free to lose;

Because Jesus was Someone, I am free to be no one;

Because Jesus was extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary;

Because Jesus succeeded for me, I am free to fail.

This is beginning to define my life in brand new, bright, and liberating ways. I believe God wants this liberating truth to define your life as well…and the life of the church corporately. Because I’m telling you right now, when you begin to understand that everything you need and long for, in Christ you already possess—it enables you to live a life of scandalous freedom, unrestrained fearlessness, and unbounded courage. Nothing in this broken world can beat a man who isn’t afraid to lose! And when you’re not afraid to lose you can say crazy, counterintuitive stuff like, “To live is Christ and to die is gain!” That’s pure, unadulterated freedom.

Amen and Amen!

Confronting the “Lies My Pastor Told Me”

Here's an interesting read- "Lies My Pastor Told Me: Confronting 15 Church Cliches With the Gospel"

Believing a lie about God is all the more damaging than believing a lie about your physical health. It impacts your relationship with God, your relationship with others, your emotions, your behavior – everything. I know this from personal experience. I spent most of my twenties believing such lies and, while I did not realize it at the time, I lived in fear, pride and bondage as a result… the ‘pastor’ I refer to throughout this book is not a specific individual but a composite character based on many pastors I have known over the past twelve years. In many cases these pastors are not intentionally lying but simply saying what they believe to be true by repeating the clichés they have heard throughout their lives. Nevertheless, they must be held to account because, intentional or not, they are doing significant damage to those who have entrusted their souls to them.

You can download the free e-book at the link or on their Facebook page.

Hat Tip: Coram Deo Blog » “Lies My Pastor Told Me”