Jared Longshore's Blog, page 23

What Naturalism Cannot Accept

Naturalism without ceasing to be itself, could admit a certain kind of God. The great interlocking event called Nature might be such as to produce at some stage a great cosmic consciousness, an indwelling ‘God’ arising from the whole process as human mind arises (according to the Naturalists) from human organisms . . . What Naturalism cannot accept is the idea of a God who stands outside Nature and made it.

C. S. Lewis, Miracles

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The Slothful Upon His Bed

Proverbs tells us, “As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed” (Proverbs 26:14). You can envision the man there, rotating like a stuffed pig roasting on a spit. He’s being fattened up for the slaughter. This lazy man is not happy. He is not at leisure. He is not recreating. There is no re-creation here, but de-creation. The sloth is unpleasantly immobile, digging himself deeper and deeper into an abyss, down there where satan is bound. Very often he spins downward while mindlessly scrolling on a smartphone. There is nothing particularly tantlizing about sloth. You may be tempted to it, of course. But you are not tempted to it like the sins of pride, greed, and sexual immorality. So you must know what this particular sin is up to.

R. J. Snell has wisely said that “Boredom is a heresy, declaring God was wrong when he saw the goodness of the world.” The slothful man retreats into himself, refusing to see, taste, hear, smell, and touch God’s created world with gratitude. And it is not as if the world, from which the slothful man flees, is stagnant or passive. This good creation speaks to him in a thousand ways. It reaches out to him. The birds sing to him. The sawdust assaults his sense of smell with its pleasing aroma. The apples beckon him to taste and see that they are good. They hang from the tree as if to politely request to be put into a pie.

But the slothful man trusts his own words more than these words from God. He opts to trust his lying words of despair, hopelessness, and meaninglessness; rather than the true word of God, brought to us by slimy slugs, laughing children, and rhubarb springing up from the ground. 

To all of this, the bed-bound sloth says, “But, there is a lion in the streets.” To which we must reply, “Perhaps so, and if there is, I really would like to go and see him shake his golden mane. We might even get to hear him roar.

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Wine to Gladden the Heart

God’s goodness is seen at every turn. Psalm 104:15 says that God gives us “wine that maketh glad the heart of man . . . and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.” If that is true of bread and wine themselves, how much more true is it of Christ’ body and blood which bread and wine signify? Surely the things themselves are greater than the signs of the things. If your heart has benefited from bread and wine, how much more will your heart benefit from the bread and wine?

So do ensure that your heart lays hold of Him. I’m speaking of the real man, whom you have not seen, but love; the man in whom you believe, even though you do not see Him for now.

He is the One who is nourishing your faith at this table. He is the One who speaks to you here. And He is the One who offers Himself to you now as food and drink. Consider how He has accomodated Himself to you through these visible signs that you can smell, touch, and taste. He knows our weakness. He remembers that we are dust. He understands that our faith simply is not all that it ought to be. And He determined to institute this sacrament to speak to us. He gave us this sacrament through which He gives Himself to us. 

So receive Him and all of His benefits. He comes to you with His strength. And He comes to you with His gladness. He comes to you with His humurous reassurances that He is resurrected flesh and blood, asking you, “Do you have any meat that I can eat?” He comes to you saying that you have already died in Him. And He comes to you saying that you have already risen in Him. He comes to you and all is well. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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His Name on Us

Baptism is administered in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is a reminder to us that baptism really is a matter of the Triune God placing His name upon the baptized. God initiates. We love God because He loved us first. We are to acknowledge what He has done, and what He has promised to do. Jesus said that He knew His own. And we must trust Him that He indeed does know them and has laid down His life for them. 

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Peace and Where to Find It

God’s command to us is that we would be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:6). And nothing, of course, means nothing. This is a high bar. We all know what it is like to miss this particular mark. But that is no excuse for us missing it. Peace is what must replace worry. Peace is the fruit of the Spirit that involves all being well with your soul. But the very notion that peace is a fruit of the Spirit implies that you cannot simply go out and get it. Peace is something you must receive. It must be given to you.

After His resurrection, Jesus was with his disciples forty days. And the first thing He said when He showed Himself to them was, “Peace be unto you” (Luke 24:36). They responded with terror, afraid they had seen a spirit. But He asked them, “Why are you troubled? . . . Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 38-39). Peace flooded in at that point. Not only had they not seen a spirit. They had seen their likeness raised from the dead. A real man, dead and now raised to live forever, as they would be. While they were still in awe, He underscored their peace by asking, “Does anyone have some meat that I can eat?” Imagine their awe as they watched Him chew and swallow.

Peace comes from the resurrected Christ. You will find it nowhere else. Look to Him and believe His words when He says, “Peace be unto you.” You must see Him by faith, of course. As Isaiah says, “You will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” (Isaiah 26:3). So stay your mind and heart on the embodied and risen Christ. He is your peace.

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From the Collar Upward

The man’s a genius. From the collar upward he stands alone. 

P. G. Wodehouse, Carry On, Jeeves

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The Living Bread

Jesus made a very important distinction between the bread he gave and the bread Israel ate in the wilderness. In both instances, the bread came from heaven. In both instances, the bread was spiritual food. In both instances, the bread was a gift from God to His covenant people. But Jesus drew a distinction when he said, “Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they are dead” (John 6:49). By contrast, Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” (John 6:51). Manna was heavenly bread, but it was not living bread.

Christ is the Living Bread. And the wonder of this statement should not be lost on us. Bread simply does not last. Manna would go bad in a day. Your bread can make it a few days before growing moldy. The closest thing we can get to living bread is that sourdough starter, which we say is alive. But it is always in need of being fed and tended. Christ, however, is the Living Bread who doesn’t need to be fed or tended. He has life in Himself; the Father, who also has life in Himself, has granted this to the Son. Christ is the Living Bread who gives life to the world, and the life never runs out. The bread is eaten and yet the bread never diminishes.

All of this means that we have come to the table of the new covenant. We have come to the meal that marks the resurrection era. Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness and they died. But we have come to the age where the firstborn of our race has risen from the dead and given His flesh to us as food. We will rise again for we partake of the bread who has already risen. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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In the Likeness of His Resurrection

Scripture says that we are baptized into Christ’s death so that as Christ was raised from the dead, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. Baptism is not only a sign of what is past. It is also a sign of what is to come. The old man is gone. The new here. The old life gone. The new life before us. That new life is certain. God has promised it, saying, “If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”

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Why Christianity Triumphs

If man wonders why Christianity has triumphed throughout so much of the world, then he needs to look no further than the fact that Christians are ready to die. As Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Here is a principle that every man can grasp. If you face an army in which every soldier is ready to give his life, then you face a formidable force. Christians live in this world for something more than this world. We live in this world for the next world, the resurrected world. And the Christians who live most for that world are the most effective in this one.

Let the resurrection have its full force. You are coming out of the ground, my friends. This is a promise upon which we stand flat-footed. Your casket will crack. Your lungs will heave. Your ears will hear the sound of resurrected American robins. And you will attend the mother of all family reunions with honors and treasures given for how each one lived in this life. This resurrection will happen on an appointed day. Maybe a Tuesday. I’m betting Sunday. And what a day it will be.

This resurrection frees you from the fear of death—and not just physical death when you depart the body. The resurrection frees you from the fear of every death you face between now and then—those “dying-daily” deaths. There is no other way to do good works. Death must be at work in you so that life is at work in others. And how will you face those regular Thursday afternoon deaths? Honestly, how are you going to carry your cross on that long road to Calvary? It is quite simple: The same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you. 

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The Weakness of Thrills

If you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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