Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis Excerpt - 'Some writers use the word charity to describe not only Christian love between human beings, but also God's love for man and man's love for God. About the second of these two, people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, 'If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?' When you have found the answer, go and do it.'
You are told you OUGHT to LOVE GOD.
We OUGHT to love God, there is no doubt about it.
But do we love God?
We say we love God all the time. People love to say they love God. Yet as we've studied many times the following will happened.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
These people believe they LOVE GOD!
They are casting out devils, they are doing many wonderful works, they are prophesizing all in God's name. Do they love God? They say they do. They might even believe they do. They feel like they do. Yet there are others who aren't sure that they FEEL this love they are supposed to feel. They are going by feelings, the sentimentality, and love is so much more than all that.
C.S. Lewis tells us to 'ACT as if you did.' Act as if you love God even if you don't have any special feelings for Him, feelings we call love. We really can't sit around making up pretend feelings any way. We feel what we feel. I had someone once tell me, or I read somewhere, that feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are. And that is so true. They exist. Situations manufacture our feelings, our reactions to situations manufacture our feelings. If someone does something that makes me happy, I react happy. Likewise if someone does something to anger me the feeling of anger will arise and so on. We cannot relate all this to feelings for God though. We cannot love Him when we believe He is doing things that make us happy. It's the same for our partners, our families, our loved ones. We DON'T just love them when they are making us happy, if that were the case we'd stop loving them all the time because being happy isn't something that is constant. Feeling love, we really shouldn't concern ourselves with FEELING love, but KNOWING love. And in our knowing we must LIVE as if we know we LOVE God, and that living is our 'acting as if we did' whether we feeling anything or not.
'On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him.' -C.S. Lewis
God's love for us. God's amazing love.
'Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. ' -C.S. Lewis
I absolutely love this- 'Christian love… is an affair of the will.'
WE CHOOSE! We choose constantly. Nothing 'just' happens. Situations occur constantly and in those situations we choose our reactions. Every action you make is born out of a choice.
'If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.' -C.S. Lewis
Amazing!
And… TRUE!
Our feelings come and go all the time, constantly. We could be happy one second and depressed the next. Angry one moment and laughing the next. We cannot count on our feelings as a gauge towards our LOVE for God.
If and when we are given those amazing feelings they really are something to cherish, but we must remember they can be very fleeting and to NOT have those feelings does not mean we've grown further from God. Satan loves for us to use our feelings to get us to judge our relationship with God. He wants us to be discouraged and believe we have no real hope. Satan will do EVERYTHING towards that end. Satan does not want us to truly comprehend the LOVE of God, because in that comprehension we realize so little actually depends upon our FEELINGS, and much more depends upon our act of will- our choices made regardless of how we feel at any given moment. The LOVE of God is NOT this sublime feeling of ecstasy that people want to believe it is. No, I'm not saying it can't be that kind of feeling, but to believe it HAS to be that kind of feeling is a trap.
We can KNOW, we don't have to FEEL in order to KNOW.
1Jn_5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Ye may know.
KNOW.
Not, you may feel you have eternal life, but rather you may know.
We can know. We truly can know. We do not have to trust our feelings, they are terribly unreliable and subject to too many variables. We cannot trust our feelings, we can trust GOD and KNOW, HE KNOWS. If we trust in GOD we are trusting to TRUTH, to true LOVE.
All by HIS GRACE.
ALL By HIS MERCY!
ALL IN HIM!
OUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!
OUR LORD!
You are told you OUGHT to LOVE GOD.
We OUGHT to love God, there is no doubt about it.
But do we love God?
We say we love God all the time. People love to say they love God. Yet as we've studied many times the following will happened.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
These people believe they LOVE GOD!
They are casting out devils, they are doing many wonderful works, they are prophesizing all in God's name. Do they love God? They say they do. They might even believe they do. They feel like they do. Yet there are others who aren't sure that they FEEL this love they are supposed to feel. They are going by feelings, the sentimentality, and love is so much more than all that.
C.S. Lewis tells us to 'ACT as if you did.' Act as if you love God even if you don't have any special feelings for Him, feelings we call love. We really can't sit around making up pretend feelings any way. We feel what we feel. I had someone once tell me, or I read somewhere, that feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are. And that is so true. They exist. Situations manufacture our feelings, our reactions to situations manufacture our feelings. If someone does something that makes me happy, I react happy. Likewise if someone does something to anger me the feeling of anger will arise and so on. We cannot relate all this to feelings for God though. We cannot love Him when we believe He is doing things that make us happy. It's the same for our partners, our families, our loved ones. We DON'T just love them when they are making us happy, if that were the case we'd stop loving them all the time because being happy isn't something that is constant. Feeling love, we really shouldn't concern ourselves with FEELING love, but KNOWING love. And in our knowing we must LIVE as if we know we LOVE God, and that living is our 'acting as if we did' whether we feeling anything or not.
'On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him.' -C.S. Lewis
God's love for us. God's amazing love.
'Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. ' -C.S. Lewis
I absolutely love this- 'Christian love… is an affair of the will.'
WE CHOOSE! We choose constantly. Nothing 'just' happens. Situations occur constantly and in those situations we choose our reactions. Every action you make is born out of a choice.
'If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.' -C.S. Lewis
Amazing!
And… TRUE!
Our feelings come and go all the time, constantly. We could be happy one second and depressed the next. Angry one moment and laughing the next. We cannot count on our feelings as a gauge towards our LOVE for God.
If and when we are given those amazing feelings they really are something to cherish, but we must remember they can be very fleeting and to NOT have those feelings does not mean we've grown further from God. Satan loves for us to use our feelings to get us to judge our relationship with God. He wants us to be discouraged and believe we have no real hope. Satan will do EVERYTHING towards that end. Satan does not want us to truly comprehend the LOVE of God, because in that comprehension we realize so little actually depends upon our FEELINGS, and much more depends upon our act of will- our choices made regardless of how we feel at any given moment. The LOVE of God is NOT this sublime feeling of ecstasy that people want to believe it is. No, I'm not saying it can't be that kind of feeling, but to believe it HAS to be that kind of feeling is a trap.
We can KNOW, we don't have to FEEL in order to KNOW.
1Jn_5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Ye may know.
KNOW.
Not, you may feel you have eternal life, but rather you may know.
We can know. We truly can know. We do not have to trust our feelings, they are terribly unreliable and subject to too many variables. We cannot trust our feelings, we can trust GOD and KNOW, HE KNOWS. If we trust in GOD we are trusting to TRUTH, to true LOVE.
All by HIS GRACE.
ALL By HIS MERCY!
ALL IN HIM!
OUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!
OUR LORD!
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