We have been reading C.S. Lewis' classic book "Mere Christianity" in our Monday night small group. We just started and are only a few chapters in, but Lewis has some great quotes that I wanted to share with you.
Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.
When we were discussing this quote, someone asked why God would give us free will, is it worth it. I think the simplest answer is to ask a husband or wife if it is worth loving the spouse through all the tough times. Or to ask a parent is your child really worth all the pain and stress they bring to your life?
I think to of something I just read about stocks (One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch), that you can only lose so much of your investment. If I invest $1000, I can only lose a $1000, but I can gain untold riches right? It could double in value, triple, 10 fold, whatever, the sky is the limit. Ok so maybe that isn't quite the same thing, but you can get the idea, you can only lose so much but the amount that you can gain is off the charts.
Often times when when talking about God with people they may make some argument about if there really was a god he wouldn't let all these bad things happen. On a more personal note, it is easy for me to look at the news stories of the day and get frustrated at how evil human's can be and wonder why it can be. Not to worry though, Lewis will save the day for us with this great quote.
The better stuff a creature is made of-the cleverer and stronger and freer it is-then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong.
Kind of amazing to think of huh? We are only capable of such awful things because we are made of such great material. We have so much potential to be good.
This last quote I think is one of Lewis' all time best. I think it is something that all Christian's should know about. It is the perfect response to those that say Jesus was just a great teacher...
Jesus cannot be just a moral teacher. "He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg,- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
I think the next time someone tells me that Jesus was just a great teacher, I will have to ask them if they have read anything about him or what he said. Looking at Scripture there is no way he could be just a teacher. He turned away the rich man not because he wasn't "good" for society, but because he couldn't part with his money. It came between him and God. He picked the losers, he picked the very people that society thought were useless and he revealed himself to them. He was a radical preacher that wasn't liked by the establishment (remember, they did kill him for what he said and claimed to be). If he was a good little preacher, I doubt he would have been killed for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment