My heart burned when I read this for the first time two years ago. It burns when I read it now. I want to know Christ, and the fellowship of his sufferings. Take my degrees, my friends, my reputation. I count it all a loss. All I want is Christ. Period.
The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, 'This is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go,' but He says, 'I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life.'
He says, 'No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.'
He says, 'If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole universe.'
--C. S. Lewis, 'What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?' in
God in the Dock (Eerdmans 1970), 160
My heart burned when I read this for the first time two years ago. It burns when I read it now. I want to know Christ, and the fellowship of his sufferings. Take my degrees, my friends, my reputation. I count it all a loss. All I want is Christ. Period.
Such simple, clear hyper-focus on Christ himself, it seems to me, sweeps away the secondary and tertiary clutter that complicates our discourse. Why do we even care about lesser things? "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live." That means everything is different now.
ReplyDeleteI have really been missing my strawberry-rhubarb every day (or almost every day) . . . so glad to get back to it!
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