Thoughts From C.S. Lewis

Dear Friends,

My purpose in sending out these weekly "thoughts" has always been to bless you with the writings of people whom you may not have heard of, read, or yet discovered (and for those well-read, some of their materials which you may not have yet discovered)! My goal is to send out things that are helpful and encouraging, or may help you see things from a new perspective. The same is true today.

Today I'm offering you some quotes taken from the writings of a man who has been profoundly helpful to me in my Christian walk - C. S. Lewis. I am often chided for only quoting the old dead guys in my sermons, yet, that's because so much of what they say resonates with my soul! Not because it's old, but because it's true, and so often profound. C. S. Lewis is one of those people. Thus I offer you just a little taste of his wisdom. I have never read him without learning something new. I trust the same is true for you. Enjoy.

Thoughts of C. S. Lewis

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

“God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself, because there is no such thing.”

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing on a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, building towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

“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 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.”

“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.”

“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

I trust you may have found one or more helpful. Lewis had a unique way of presenting the truth of Scripture!

Blessings on your day, Pastor Jeff