Being Really Nice - C S Lewis

"Niceness" -- wholesome, integrated personality -- is an excellent thing.

We must try by every medical, educational, economic and political means in our power, to produce a world where as many people as possible grow up "nice" just as we must try to produce a world where all have plenty to eat.

But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls.

A world of nice people, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world--and might even be more difficult to save.

For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine.

God became man to turn creatures into sons; not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.

It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better, but like turning a horse into a winged creature.             
                              C S Lewis, Mere Christianity

Small Talk: What comes first?

We can't become holy to make God love us.

God loves us and wants to make us holy.

Remember, the Law came after redemption. 

The Hebrew slaves were freed and saved (brought out of bondage in Egypt) before the Law was given to them. 

It's the same with us.

 It is His grace that saves us.


We then show our love to Him by obeying Him.


"If you love Me, you will obey Me," He said (John 14:23).

Lesson from the Talking Beasts and Israel

From the Chronicles of Narnia, by C S Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, Chapter 10.



Aslan, after creating Narnia and  distinguishing some of the animals as "Talking Beasts", told them:


"Creatures, I give you yourselves." said the strong, happy voice of Aslan.

"I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you Myself. The Dumb Beasts who I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not so."

"No, Aslan, we won't," said everyone.

But they did go back....


The Israelites, were chosen by God to be His witness and testimony of light in a dark world,

but they also went back...

    He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of
     the enemy he redeemed them...

     Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.

     But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for
     his counsel...
    
     They forgot the God who saved them...they mingled with the
     nations and adopted their customs...They worshipped  their
     idols, which became a snare to them.
                                        -- Psalm 106



 And the prophet Zechariah reminded them again --

     This is what the LORD God Almighty says: Administer true
     justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.

     Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the
     poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.

     But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned
     their backs and stopped their ears.

     They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen
     to the law or to the words that the LORD God Almighty had
     sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets.

     So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

     'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called I
     would not listen,' says the LORD Almighty.

     'I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations,
     where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate
     behind them that no one could come or go.

     'This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.'
                                      -- Zechariah 7:8-14


Is this our story?

We can learn much about the character of God from the way He deals with His people.

Words of great mercy and grace are being whispered to us from His Word:

     But he took note of their distress and he heard their cry;
       for their sake he remembered his covenant and out of his great
       love he relented...Psalm 106:45

He saved them again!

     Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the
       great love of the LORD.  Psalm 107:43


    

What Makes Us Different?

 

                                                     What Makes Us Different?

Other religions tell their adherents to practice righteousness, to try to be good, and then maybe God will then allow you to approach Him. Our God tells us to come as we are, sinful and needy.  Now.  And He will make us good. 

We  don't try to make ourselves good to come to God. We come to Him and He makes us good!

And He is reaching out to us, drawing us to Him. Coming to rescue us.

What a contrast! What an offer!

There is an old hymn, written almost 300 years ago, a favorite among our pioneer  ancestors, that described in detail that message. It was a favorite of Daniel Boone and his people.

It is titled, "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy" -- here are some of my favorite lines - -- "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. Come, ye weary, heavy-laden, lost and ruined by the fall. If you tarry till you're better, you will never come a all! Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness He requireth, is to feel your need of Him!"

Chorus: "I will arise and go to Jesus -- He will embrace me in His arms..."

I love this old hymn . Wish I could hear it sung today just as generations did in the past.

We need to remind each other of what it reminds us of.......Now is the day of salvation....don't wait. Come just as we are.

(We would never be good enough! And we can never be too bad!)

What's so good about being poor?

Monika Hellwig gives us some advantages of being poor:

 1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.
 2. The poor know not only their dependence on God and on
     powerful people, but also their interdependence with one
     another.
 3. The poor rest their security, not on things, but on people.
 4. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance
     and no exaggerated need for privacy.
 5. The poor expect little from competition and much from
     cooperation.
 6. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
 7. The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged
     patience born of acknowledged dependence.
 8. The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated,
     because they already know that one can survive great suffering
     and want.
 9. When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds
     like good news, and not like a threat or a scolding
10.The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain
     abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so
     little to lose and are ready for anything.


--This list is found in The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.....today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing....    Isaiah 6l:1-2; Luke 4:18, 21