Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘self’

On Self

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. . . . I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call “me” can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
The fundamental premise of these devotionals is that God gave us an Eden in which to live, and the only thing keeping us out of it is us. It is called the Good Morning Garden because each day we can live in the garden called Eden.
We just have to get our “selfs” out of the way. That is also the secret to becoming the children of God we were created to be.
Being God’s child,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

On Self

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
A rejection, or in Scripture’s strong language, a crucifixion of the natural self is the passport to everlasting life. Nothing that has not died will be resurrected.
 
The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses. Copyright © 1949, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1976, revised 1980 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

Christian baptism is the symbol of dying to the self and being resurrected to God. It prefigures our literal death and resurrection. When we bury the self, God shines through us into the physical world. When we bury our bodies, we shine through into the spiritual world.
 
Dying to live,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

On The Real Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of ‘little Christs’, all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. 
 
He invented— as an author invents characters in a novel—all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. 
 
In fact what I so proudly call ‘Myself’ becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call ‘My wishes’ become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. 
 
Eggs and alcohol and a good night’s sleep will be the real origins of what I flatter myself by regarding as my own highly personal and discriminating decision to make love to the girl opposite to me in the railway carriage. Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideas. I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call ‘me’ can be very easily explained. 
 
It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
 
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

We are infinitely more than the sum total of all the eggs and bacon we have consumed. Yet our commonly held sensory perception of self, creates a barrier to knowing our true nature and character. It is only when we let go of the self-hood we try to claim, that we can fully express the true self who is God within us.
 
We can not create our own universe, but we can become one with the universe created by God for us by seeking and following God’s will. Then, we will see and experience the true reality and be the real and true self God created us to be. 
 
Getting real,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »