*******************************************************
Screw Tape Letters: If you have never read this amazing little book, by C.S. Lewis, it is a must read. It is a series of letters written to a “nephew” from his “uncle”--a correspondence between two agents of satan. Take note, they refer to God as the “Enemy.”
Screw Tape Letters: If you have never read this amazing little book, by C.S. Lewis, it is a must read. It is a series of letters written to a “nephew” from his “uncle”--a correspondence between two agents of satan. Take note, they refer to God as the “Enemy.”
“Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present...It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that making them think about it we make them think of unreality's. In a word, the future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time-for the past is frozen and no longer flows, and the present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as creative evolution, scientific humanism, or communism, which fix men’s affections of the future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future.”
How many of us “fix our affections” on the future? Often times, anxiety becomes a vice as we allow our minds to settle on the “unreality’s” of what may or could be. And this is exactly the place the enemy wants us, because truly, the future is the “least thing like eternity.”
Many times the things we are anxious about, concerning the future, are things that the Lord wants to “set right” right now!
“I am ready to set things right, not in the distant future, but right now!” {Isaiah 46:13}. God wants to change hearts now, he wants to restore marriages now, he wants to break the bonds of sin in our children now!
For, “today is the day of salvation.”
For, “today is the day of salvation.”
Some of you may ask, but doesn’t God want us to plan for the future, to be wise stewards? To quote Screw Tape Letters once again,
“To be sure, the Enemy {God} wants men to think of the future too-just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow...The Enemies ideal is a man, who having worked all day for the good of posterity {if that is his vocation}, washed his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to heaven, and returns at once the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.”
“Do not worry about tomorrow {the future}...Matthew 6:34. I am one, if I do not set my mind on the day at hand, will worry my way through tomorrow. It is far better as I continually “issue to heaven,” that which belongs to God. And remember.
It is trusting in God’s great love for us where we can rest in today and not worry about tomorrow {the future}.
“Can anything separate us from God’s love? Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow...nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
When we set our minds on the future, we get our eyes off what really matters, eternity. And this is just what the enemy wants. When Jesus was being tempted in the desert, the enemy was trying to distract Him from the inevitable future of His death. In the same manner, the enemy can use the past--remember when the enemy kept reminding the people of Israel, as they wandered in the wilderness, about the “better” life in Egypt. Be it the past or the future, the enemy does NOT want us to look at eternity! Why?
Because, we are eternal beings. Ecclesiastes 3 says, “God planted eternity in human hearts...” We were neither created for the past nor the future. We were created for eternity! Now wrap your mind around that--amazing!
“Nothing is important but that which is eternal” {Amy Carmichael}. This is how I want to live. All that I do, I desire to be fueled by the eternal. How I raise my children, love my husband, use my God given resources, on what I fix my affections upon, etc.
Remember, God is the God of eternity. He exhorts us to not worry about the future, nor live in the past, but set our minds on things above, the eternal. Commit your ways to Him and He will direct your path, one day at a time.
“Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” John 12:25
4 comments:
Haven't read that in a while, but remember it vividly. Love this post! Thank you.
Hey friend hope things are well for your family..
whew...that was a long week. ;o)
love your well pictures!
i've read bits and pieces of Screwtape. i need to get it down from the shelf and read again...the whole book!
hugs
love it! :)
Post a Comment