a hungry imagination.

... AND THINGS THAT SATISFY IT.

the self. Let is die (PART II)… Individuality

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Individuality is the hard outer layer surrounding the inner spiritual life. Individuality shoves others aside, separating and isolating people. We see it as the primary characteristic of a child, and rightly so. When we confuse individuality with the spiritual life, we remain isolated. This shell of individuality is God’s created natural covering designed to protect the spiritual life. But our individuality must be yielded to God so that our spiritual life may be brought forth into fellowship with Him. Individuality counterfeits spirituality, just as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself, but individuality corrupts that human nature for its own purposes.
The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-will. We hinder our spiritual growth more than any other way by continually asserting our individuality. If you say, “I can’t believe,” it is because your individuality is blocking the way; individuality can never believe. But our spirit cannot help believing. Watch yourself closely when the Spirit of God is at work in you. He pushes you to the limits of your individuality where a choice must be made. The choice is either to say, “I will not surrender,” or to surrender, breaking the hard shell of individuality, which allows the spiritual life to emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing (see Matthew 5:23-24). It is your individuality that refuses to “be reconciled to your brother” (Matthew 5:24). God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself, He cannot. “. . . let him deny himself . . .”— deny his independent right to himself. Then the real life-the spiritual life-is allowed the opportunity to grow.

CHAMBERS, http://utmost.org/individuality/

the self. let it die.

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"The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world, just as people who have been brought up to be dirty are afraid of a bath. And in a sense it is quite right. It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that."

LEWIS, "Mere Christianity."

WORLDVIEW: A natural question ... about naturalism (materialism)

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"If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident, too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e. of materialism and astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. 

It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."

C.S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven, p. 97, 1984.

VIDEO: Effective, tragic.

If I were one of the new atheists, but too clever to be strident, if I wanted to cast doubt on the gospel, not on a particular doctrine but on the whole, if I wanted to distort Christianity into a distasteful caricature so that it would be dismissed, if I wanted to advance the cause of unbelief in Christ rather than wholehearted, joyous, articulate confidence in Christ, this is exactly the kind of video I would produce.

It is effective. But to a tragic end.

Effective, tragic is a post from: Ray Ortlund


RELIGION: Looking for God in space.

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“The Russians, I am told, report that they have not found God in outer space… The conclusion some people want us to draw from the data is that God does not exist, and the corollary – Those who think they have met Him on earth are suffering from a delusion. But other conclusions might be drawn:

1) We have not yet gone far enough in space. There had been ships sailing on the Atlantic for a good time before America was discovered.
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2) God does exist, but is locally confined to this planet.

3) The Russians did find God in space without knowing it, but they lacked the requisite apparatus for detecting Him.

4) God does exist, but He is not an object which is either located in a particular part of space or diffused throughout space.

The first two conclusions do not interest me. The sort of religion for which they could be a defense would be a religion for savages: the belief in a local deity who can be contained in a particular temple, island, or grove. That, in fact, seems to be the sort of religion about which the Russians – or some Russians, and a good many people in the West – are looking for. It is not in the least disquieting that no astronauts have discovered a god of that sort. The really disquieting thing would be if they had. 

Looking for God – or Heaven – by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters… Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth… My point is, if God does exist, He is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play…