The Weight of Glory 2

"But I thought I could detect a moment--a very, very short moment--before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him who she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero's book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; 'it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.' I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised."

- C.S. Lewis

The Weight of Glory 1

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, 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.

If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy."

- C.S. Lewis

New Year Commitments

For the longest time I had absolutely refused to make new years resolutions. I was never good at keeping them, mostly because my resolutions were always trivial in nature. They were always about the same things--committing to go to the gym a certain number of times or sleeping at a moderate hour. Thus, there always lacked a sense of conviction for any of them. And without conviction, there can never be deep change or lasting progress.

This year, I didn't give in to making the same resolutions in the same pattern. Rather, I've adopted a different strategy, though I wouldn't necessarily say this method is strategic.

Instead of making silly resolutions bound to fail, I've decided to make short-term commitments whose purpose is to strengthen my greatest conviction of following Christ as if His words "I am the truth, the life, and the way" were literally engraved in my heart. I want to submit to His Lordship in quiet humility, bold proclamation, and trustful living. And I believe these short-term (one-year) commitments will help in some way.

Before I begin listing them, I hope that you will not run away from here with the wrong idea. I am not publicizing these things to be pharisaic. I do not write this in hopes to project a (falsely) righteous image of myself without any true intention of keeping these commitments. May God my Judge hold me to these words when I approach His throne. The purpose behind this blog post is for accountability. As I have an ugly history of quietly sweeping new years resolutions under the table, I want to pronounce these commitments as a means of keeping them, or at least as a means of not forgetting them. I want to create a pool of witnesses so that these words will not simply be forgotten. If you are reading this now, you are one of my witnesses. Whenever you see me or talk to me, remind me of these things. Ask me how I have been keeping up with my commitments. Examine if I am bearing fruit in my life. Keep me accountable to the words that I utter.

These commitments I pulled from a book I just finished called Radical. I don't want to explain in further  detail (because I want to encourage everyone to read the book) so read it. :)

1. Read the entire Bible

2. Pray for the entire world

3. Sacrifice financially for a specific cause

4. Serve in another context

5. Commit to a multiplying church (commit as in "to further the multiplication process by discipleship and evangelism")

Though I do have specific subgoals for each of these, I won't disclose them here, my reason being that I don't want to. :) If you see me around, feel free to ask how I am doing in any of these categories.

Happy 2012!