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Posts Tagged ‘Spiritual’

On Pleasure

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Screwtape twists the gift of pleasure
 
Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. 
 
Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return—that is what really gladdens Our Father’s heart. And the troughs are the time for beginning the process.
 
The disciple Paul urges “all things in moderation”. This is the bulwark against our God-created pleasures becoming defiled by misuse, abuse or weakness. It is God’s good pleasure that we enjoy all the gifts of life and use them to our best good.
 
When we; through temptation, self-centeredness or pride, despoil God’s gifts, we then suffer the consequences. This most often occurs when we are down, insecure or otherwise troubled, burdened or “in the trough” of despair or hurt. This is when we must be most careful to take God’s pleasures as intended; according to the creator’s instructions.
 
The good news is, those pleasures, properly taken, are God’s antidote to our worldly challenges and our own weaknesses. So, drink deeply of all God’s pleasures, but be sure to do so according to God’s will. Then, Screwtape will have no success with us.
 
Seeking moderation,
Z gardener
 
Note: The current sources for these devotionals are the writings of C.S. Lewis. For those unfamiliar with Lewis, Screwtape is a character in one of his books, The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape is one of Satan’s minions whose job is to educate lesser demons in the dark arts of tempting mankind into sin so Satan can claim their souls.
 
Z

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On Thankfulness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 2, 2014| 1 Comment »

C.S. Lewis wrote this to a friend.
 
…I dined at the Harwoods that night and came away—on Tuesday morning—as you said in your last letter ‘thanking the Giver’ which, by the way, is the completion of a pleasure. One of the things about being an unbeliever is that the steam or ‘spirit’ (in the chemical sense) given off by experiences has nowhere to go to.
 
In a true sense, thankfulness is the acknowledgement and completion of a pleasure or a gift. The failure to thank a gift-giver robs both the giver and receiver of completion. Similarly, so does the failure of internal gratitude also deny the fruition and flowering of the gift into its full potential/completion within us.
 
So today, let us recommit ourselves to a spirit of thankfulness and gratitude. Then our gardens will flourish with the manifestations of God’s will and the recognition of all our blessings and gifts. Our full pleasure will then be complete.
 
In thankful gratitude,
Z gardener 

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On the slow process of being more in Christ; and on doing one’s duty, especially the duty to enjoy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
The whole problem of our life was neatly expressed by John the Baptist when he said (John, chap 3, v. 30) ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ This you have realized. But you are expecting it to happen suddenly: and also expecting that you should be clearly aware when it does. But neither of these is usual. 
 
We are doing well enough if the slow process of being more in Christ and less in ourselves has made a decent beginning in a long life (it will be completed only in the next world). Nor can we observe it happening. All our reports on ourselves are unbelievable, even in worldly matters (no one really hears his own voice as others do, or sees his own face). Much more in spiritual matters. God sees us, and we don’t see ourselves. And by trying too hard to do so, we only get the fidgets and become either too complacent or too much the other way.
 
Your question what to do is already answered. Go on (as you apparently are going on) doing all your duties. And, in all lawful ways, go on enjoying all that can be enjoyed—your friends, your music, your books. Remember we are told to ‘rejoice’ [Philippians 4:4]. Sometimes when you are wondering what God wants you to do, He really wants to give you something.
 
As to your spiritual state, try my plan. I pray ‘Lord, show me just so much (neither more nor less) about myself as I need for doing thy will now.’
 
On a day of new resolutions we should not expect miraculous changes immediately. In fact, a resolution to do “what we need to do” is pretty simple. Become less the “self” we perceive and more the “child of God” we were created to become.
 
The truth is this will not happen in an instant as a result of a declaration or resolution. It will mostly happen incrementally, imperceptibly on the path of small and large decisions and the resulting actions they cause.
 
The good news is, it will happen as certainly as the sun rising each day. As the sun nourishes the plants, they grow steadily but slowly; to slow to see with unaided human perception; yet, grow they do. What we must do this day and each day is to faithfully plant the proper seeds of God’s will, let the sunshine of God’s truth into our gardens, till and fertilize the soil. Then, God will cause our gardens to flourish. Then, we can live lives enjoying all that we should enjoy, and doing all that we should be doing in peace, hope and joy..
 
Have a happy and blessed new year,
Z gardener

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A New Beginning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

As this year comes to an end, we all have the opportunity for a new beginning in 2014. Yes, we have this opportunity each day, yet the coming of a new year gives us the added impetus to make positive changes. Marking time is a uniquely human characteristic that reflects the changing of seasons and the march of days. These natural changes reflect the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. As children of God in nature, we experience these same cycles and the opportunities for change that they represent.
 
May all the good of we encountered in 2013 be multiplied in each of our lives in 2014. May each of us overcome the bad that we experienced and turn it to good in the coming year. And may God’s love, grace, mercy and forgiveness surround each of us with joy, peace and hope each day of 2014.
 
Beginning anew,
Z gardener

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On Freedom And Predestination

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 30, 2013| 1 Comment »

 
Witness the doctrine of Predestination which shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in which to be real; but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper truth of the two.
 
Free will is a part of how God created us to be. It is integral to our becoming the children of God we are created to be. After all, our relationship with God is a call and response. We get to choose how or if we respond. 
 
If we accept God’s call, then we are assured of our incarnation as children of God. However, we must choose to follow God’s will. We may also choose not to do so. These free choices will determine our destiny and our destination.
 
Choosing to respond,
Z gardener

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On This Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

In this season of expectation, gratitude and exultation, let us put away the things of darkness and take up the things of light. Things like our family, home, health and a loving God who orders these blessings for our best good.

 
As for this scribe, on this day, twenty eight years ago, God answered the most fervent prayer with a squeal of delight and a simple “yes”. That night, on bended knee, this prayer was answered when my wife-to-be said yes to only question that mattered, “Will you marry me?”
 
Today; in gratitude for twenty eight years of answered prayers; in anticipation of many more such years and in exultation for the light she has brought into this life for her family and friends; this blessed husband and father offers his thanks for his answered prayer, and for our family’s ever-new life together, forever.
 
For all our friends, families and those we love and care about, may this season bring the answers to all your prayers. And may those answers lead each of you into the light of this season, and remind each of us to celebrate this light of peace, hope and joy that has come to the world.
 
 “Behold, I bring tidings of great joy.” The light of the world has come.”
 
In the light,
Z gardener

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On How to Transform a Minor Trespass Into a Major Sin

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Screwtape shows how to transform a minor trespass into a major sin:
 
Success here depends on confusing him. If you try to make him explicitly and professedly proud of being a Christian, you will probably fail; the Enemy’s warnings are too well known. If, on the other hand, you let the idea of ‘we Christians’ drop out altogether and merely make him complacent about ‘his set’, you will produce not true spiritual pride but mere social vanity which, by comparison, is a trumpery, puny little sin. What you want is to keep a sly self-congratulation mixing with all his thoughts and never allow him to raise the question ‘What, precisely, am I congratulating myself about?’ 
 
The idea of belonging to an inner ring, of being in a secret, is very sweet to him. Play on that nerve. Teach him, using the influence of this girl when she is silliest, to adopt an air of amusement at the things the unbelievers say. Some theories which he may meet in modern Christian circles may here prove helpful; theories, I mean, that place the hope of society in some inner ring of ‘clerks’, some trained minority of theocrats. It is no affair of yours whether those theories are true or false; the great thing is to make Christianity a mystery religion in which he feels himself one of the initiates.
 
“And lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The reference here is to spiritual pride, which we may fall victim to once we choose God’s way for our lives. It is deadly because this pride blinds us to our own self-righteousness, cutting us off from  repentance and forgiveness. Many good Christians fall victim to this sin by starting down the path described by the demon Screwtape.
 
When we trust too much in ourselves, our leaders or our institutions instead of God’s love, forgiveness, humility and patience, we suffer from the illusion of separation from God and his children. This illusion of separation is sin. It matters not whether we consider ourselves on the right side or the wrong side of this illusion. It is still sin, and allows us to divide ourselves from one another.
 
In God’s world we are not divided, but all are part of his family, the body of Christ. When we live according to this reality of unity, then we are living according to God’s will, in communion with God and all of his children. This communion, this indivisible unity of spirits is God’s will. When we live in this body of Christ, we are experiencing the garden God created for us. 
 
And lead us,
Z gardener

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On The Incarnation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man—a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular color, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.
 
It would take a lot of love for any of us to agree to become a slug or as crab…even a porpoise or an osprey! Yet, that is exactly what God did. He become one of us in every way. He agreed to suffer pain, fear and loss, just as we, his children must suffer them so long as we have physical existence. This love, this presence with us, this shared suffering manifested God among us, Emmanuel, the light of the world.
 
This love, this light is armor for or us. It is the “real” us and will dispel darkness for us whenever we put it on. Put on love today, wear your light so all can see; just as God put it on to become us, so we could see. That light and love will reveal our true selves as children of God; to us and to all whom we touch.
 
Be the light,
Z gardener 

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On Being Reborn

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
 
And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians ‘being born again’; it talks about them ‘putting on Christ’; about Christ ‘being formed in us’; about our coming to ‘have the mind of Christ’.
 
Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out—as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. 
 
They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. 
 
At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity.
 
It is in this spirit and reality that the Advent scriptures admonish us to “put away the things of darkness”, and “put on the whole armor of light”, that is Christ. This real and living Christ is the light that puts away the darkness in this world and in our thoughts, words and deeds. And it is this living Christ that gives us the hope, joy and peace that is the light in which we were created to live. 
 
So, meet the living Christ this Christmas. Walk with him each day by following his voice while abiding in his will. Then, watch his presence grow in your garden as his  love and faith sprout up in the Eden that was put here for the real “us” and our Christ forever.
 
Putting on the Christ,
Z gardener

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On Silence

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 13, 2013| 1 Comment »

 [The demon Screwtape writes:] Music and silence—how I detest them both! 
 
How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell (though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express) no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise— Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. 
 
We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it.
 
This noise is what the bible describes as “the fleshly existence” and the “carnal self”. It is our sensory perception and the physical existence in which that perception informs our consciousness. The overwhelming sensations of physical existence can drown out the subtle silences and timeless melodies. They were created for the metaphysical self in the superior spiritual realm where the true “us” exists with God. (Imagine trying to hear a soft violin during a rock concert.)
 
To hear past this noise, we must rise above the physical self to focus on, listen and hear the inner voice and it’s song that transcends this noise. The we can be our true best selves in the communion of silence with God in Eden.
 
Sounds of Silence, indeed!
Z gardener

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