Enemy Occupied Territory

8. 04.

Enemy-occupied territory – that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

If all Christians would take this idea seriously, and apply it to their lives, what a different world we would live in. Instead, we have a hard time resisting the urge to indulge in what the enemy has to offer while we are living here.

This idea has been more real to my wife and I recently, as we prepare to make a change that some consider crazy (we know some think this because they’ve told us). We are asked questions like, “how will you support your family?”, “what will you do once you’re done school?”, and other questions regarding our kids and our house which we are selling.

It seems as though we have this idea that we need to have everything in order before we respond to God’s calling. Here are a few things I think about when I have doubts:

  • God does not NEED our money. He only asks that we be generous with what we have.
  • God does not NEED our abilities, but wants us to be faithful with the gifts He’s given us.
  • God does not depend on our plans to fulfill His own plan for our lives, He just asks that we listen and obey.
  • We don’t need to know God’s whole plan to take the first step, we only need to trust Him.

Let us not get caught up in becoming too comfortable in enemy occupied territory. Remember, God has us here for a mission, which, in the details, can look different from person to person. But the call to all God’s people is to love and obey Him, love others and live a life that demonstrates the holiness given to us by God through Jesus Christ.

Goodness

8. 04.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a person “good”. Throughout my life, I’ve struggled, just as everyone does, with being a good person. I wonder, what effect do what are generally considered bad actions have on a person in the whole? Lately, my response has been, it depends mostly on how those actions change the direction of the person’s life.

C.S. Lewis states, in his book, The Great Divorce, “There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”

There was a time when I looked directly at God and made a promise to dedicate my life to His work. Over the last 13 years, I have had periods of my life where I turned my back to God, and the result was darkness. More recently, I have faced God and have experienced no less trouble, but more peace and hope than ever before.

To be good, I think, is to head in the direction that would make us into more holy people, more like the people God would have us be if it weren’t for our sinful nature. Salvation is a promise made by God, our only responsibility is to point our lives in the direction of the holiness offered freely to us.