“Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real
life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your
life.
When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ."
Colossians 3:3-4 (MSG)
When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ."
Colossians 3:3-4 (MSG)
It seems to me
that the phrase, “just be yourself” is one of the chief pieces of advice
that 21st century Americans give to others and to themselves.
“I’m just being me” we say. So,
what’s wrong with that? For one
thing I’m not sure how that makes for a marriage.
CS Lewis weighs in with these words from Mere Christianity pp 190
“The
more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us
over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions
and millions of “little Christs,” all different, will still be too few to
express Him fully. He made them all. He invented—as an author invents
characters in a novel—all the different men that you and I were intended to
be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him.
It
is no good trying to “be myself” without Him. The more I resist Him and try
to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing
and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call
“Myself” becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never
started and which I cannot stop. What I call “My wishes” become merely the
desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s
thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. Eggs and alcohol and a good
night’s sleep will be the real origins of what I flatter myself by regarding
as my own highly personal and discriminating decision to make love to the girl
opposite to me in the railway carriage. Propaganda will be the real origin of
what I regard as my own personal political ideas. I am not, in my natural state,
nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call “me”
can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up
to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”
For more:
follow on Twitter @jefflampl
No comments:
Post a Comment