Do we have a soul?--C. S. Lewis & Eugene Peterson

Spirituality is the attention we give to our souls, to the invisible interior of our lives that is the core of our identity, these image-of-God souls that comprise our uniqueness and glory.  -- Eugene Peterson, Subversive Spirituality.




We do not have a soul; we are a soul. We have a body.
                                   -- C. S. Lewis 



And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7).   .

Reveille - Winston Churchill

 

Jesus said, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). 

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in Me will live, even after he dies (John 11).

One man who believed this was Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England during World War II. He died in January, 1965. He carefully planned his own funeral, paying close attention to every detail and leaving his instructions with his family.

He wanted to make certain that everyone understood that he believed in the truth of Christ's words about the glorious resurrection of believers.

(About 6,000 people attended Winston Churchill's funeral service. And it is estimated that one million people lined the streets as the funeral procession passed by and that 350 million watched it globally!)

He was particularly interested in the concluding moments of the service.

Here is how he planned it:

He directed that two buglers were to be positioned in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. At the conclusion of his funeral service, the first bugler would play "Taps," the recognized signal that proclaimed "Day is Done." This call told soldiers to lower the flag, turn off the lights, and end their day. And the second bugler was to then to play "Reveille," which told soldiers to "Wake up! Raise the flag and go to roll call!"

-- a new day had begun!

Churchill wanted everyone to consider these two ideas: that death is not the final chapter of our life story! It opens the first chapter of our eternal life story!

He also loved these words from Isaiah: "Your dead will live, LORD, their bodies will rise  -- let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy!" (Isaiah 25)

Don't you wish you could have been there for his funeral?

He wanted to go with Jesus

 

                                                      He Wanted to go with Jesus!

"The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with Him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 'Return home and tell how much God has done for you.' So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him." 

(Luke 8:38).

Think about it --! Simple, immediate joyful obedience from an overflowing grateful heart!

Isn't that what Jesus wants from us?

Are you too easily pleased? C S Lewis

 

                                                Are You Too Easily Pleased?

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing...I submit that this notion is no-part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of rewards and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased."

     -- C S Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

(He wants to do so much more for us!)

The Art of Being Wise - Abraham Lincoln

 "A man's wisdom gives him patience. It is his glory to overlook an offense" (Proverbs 19:2).

I read once that the art of being wise is the the art of knowing what to overlook -- part of what this verse teaches us!

To overlook someone's offenses allows us to drop our pretentions and defenses (in my case usually pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness) and just humbly drop the burden and move on.

And we can choose to do that!

Abraham Lincoln chose to overlook an important offense -- he was wise.  Once his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, called him "a damned fool." Lincoln didn't retaliate in any way. He didn't relieve Stanton of duty, didn't come back with an angry retort, didn't replace him, argue in any way. Didn't try to make Stanton look bad.

Lincoln simply responded, "Mr. Stanton is very smart. He is usually right, and I usually agree with him. And he usually means what he says. So I must be a damned fool."

By being neither offensive or defensive, Lincoln killed the story! If he had responded others would have gotten involved, the press would hear about it and promote it and the fight would continue ad nauseum. (It certainly would have made the history books! Sort of like what would happen today!). Think about it -- have you ever heard this story before? No, I just dug it out of an old journal...by responding as he did, Lincoln killed the story forever! He was wise....

By the way, their friendship survived this challenge and apparently when Lincoln was fatally shot, Stanton was the one who announced, "Now he belongs to the ages," indicating he understood Lincoln's greatness.

Overlooking offenses give us joyous freedom!

Remember, "Love covers a multitude of sins." And "love is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs..." And we are told repeatedly that God Himself keeps no records of our wrongs!

We should always keep the big picture in mind -- petty offenses have no effect on God's big picture. They are meaningless.

Prayer for today: "As You have been to me, loving Father, help me to be to others today."