Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?
C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
I have read that quote often recently and it keeps speaking to me. I seem to see something new in it every time I read it. It helps me understand I cannot work my way to God but if I spend time with God, He works His way into me.
I also get the thought that this is what Paul was talking about when he says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:10
Paul is not being a masochist nor is he suicidal. He just knew that the high point of all human history was when Jesus suffered for us and died for us out of his great love for us. Paul wanted to know that kind of love and that kind of life. It seems to me Paul is saying he wanted to be near enough to it to 'catch it by a kind of infection.'
Let's get together with God this Sunday, look at this more carefully and see what we catch.
for the journey...
Tim
I have read that quote often recently and it keeps speaking to me. I seem to see something new in it every time I read it. It helps me understand I cannot work my way to God but if I spend time with God, He works His way into me.
I also get the thought that this is what Paul was talking about when he says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:10
Paul is not being a masochist nor is he suicidal. He just knew that the high point of all human history was when Jesus suffered for us and died for us out of his great love for us. Paul wanted to know that kind of love and that kind of life. It seems to me Paul is saying he wanted to be near enough to it to 'catch it by a kind of infection.'
Let's get together with God this Sunday, look at this more carefully and see what we catch.
for the journey...
Tim
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