7 December

Choose Now, Choose Well
Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. What that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.
—from Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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December 7
If a ruler harken to lies, all his servants are wicked (29:12).
The cold weather always meant more work for the police. Accidents increased and so did shoplifting and domestic squabbles. The calls came in and they had to check each one out. For that reason, the Christmas season always brought the most crank calls. Kids got out of school and didn't have anything better to do, so they would report fights, fires, accidents, and crimes that really didn't exist. Once one kid found out he could get away with it, all the kids had to try it. At a time of year when it would have been nice to relax, everyone on the force had to work double time.
Sometimes lying can be fun. Just like every sin, there is something attractive about it. Lies can be masked as practical jokes, and they then seem harmless, but someone pays the price when a lie is told. It may be done in fun, but it hurts someone. God wants us to neither accept lies nor lie to other people. He wants His children to embrace what is true, and to live accordingly. When we stick to the truth, we show that we respect it. We believe that truth is good and that we should follow the truth of God in our lives. God is truth, and in Him there are no lies at all.
PRAYER: Father, I do not want to lose the truth. I want my life to be filled with truth. I want to share your truth with everyone I meet so that they can know how wonderful you are. Thank you for blessing my life so richly. Amen. |