"With this all things are possible."

So I finished reading 'The Four Loves,' by C.S. Lewis. As usual, I loved it! And he always seems to leave the best for last... Here are some quotes from the last chapter, 'Charity.'

"In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him in (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away."

"The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

"God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say 'seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing clouds of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage" of Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves."

"For all the time this illusion to which nature clings as her last treasure, this pretence that we have anything of our own or could for one hour retain by our own strength any goodness that God may pour into us, has kept us from being happy. We have been like bathers who want to keep their feet - or one foot - or one toe - on the bottom, when to lose that foothold would be to surrender themselves to a glorious tumble in the surf. The consequences of parting with our last claim to intrinsic freedom, power, or worth, are real freedom, power and worth, really ours just because God gives them and because we know them to be (in another sense) not 'ours.'"

"We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. Only the lovable can be naturally loved. You might as well ask people to like the taste of rotten bread or the sound of a mechanical drill. We can be forgiven, and pitied, and loved in spite of it, with Charity; no other way. All who have good parents, wives, husbands, or children, may be sure that at some times - and perhaps at all times in respect of some one particular trait or habit - they are receiving Charity, are loved not because they are lovable but because Love Himself is in those who love them."

"All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do."

""Is it easy to love God?" asks an old author. "It is easy," he replies, "to those who do it." I have included two Graces under the word Charity. But God can give a third. He can awake in a man, towards Himself, a supernatural Appreciative love. This is of all gifts the most to be desired. Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true centre of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible."

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harvest Books, 1988.

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

May 11, Evening Devotional

"Be strong and very courageous." Joshua 1:7

Our God's tender love for His servants makes Him concerned for the state of their inward feelings. He desires them to be of good courage. Some regard it as a small thing for a believer to be vexed with doubts and fears, but God doesn't think so. From this text it is plain that our Master doesn't want us to be entangled with fears. He wants us to be without anxiety, without doubt, without cowardice. Our Master doesn't think so lightly of our unbelief as we do. When we are hopeless we are subject to a grievous malady, not to be trifled with, but to be carried at once to the beloved Physician. Our Lord doesn't love to see our countenance sad. It was a law of Xerxes that no one should come into the king's court dressed in mourning: this is not the law of the King of kings, for we may come mourning as we are; but still He wants us to put off the spirit of heaviness and put on the garment of praise, for there is so much reason to rejoice. The Christian ought to be of a courageous spirit in order to glorify the Lord by enduring trials in an heroic manner. If you are fearful and fainthearted, you will dishonor your God. Besides, what a bad example it is. This disease of doubtfulness and discouragement is an epidemic which soon spreads among the Lord's flock. One downcast believer makes twenty souls sad. Moreover, unless your courage is kept up, Satan will be too much for you. Let your spirit be joyful in God your Savior, the joy of the Lord shall be your strength, and no fiend of hell shall make headway against you: but cowardice throws down the banner. Moreover, work is light to a man of cheerful spirit; and success waits upon cheerfulness. Those who toil, rejoicing in their God, believing with all their hearts, has success guaranteed. Those who sow in hope shall reap in joy; therefore, dear reader, "be strong and very courageous."

C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

For any of you readers who enjoy these devotionals, I just found them on-line! They have them on Christianity.com, you can sign up for daily e-mails: http://christianity.com/devotionals/morningandevening/

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"The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance." C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms.

Links to great reads...

I've been saving these up to include in my next post, but this list is getting long! And I just can't get my next one written, it's on forgiveness... maybe that's why... who knows?!

So, thought I'd share these:

Encouragement for Today, GREAT Prayer:
http://thelife.com/blogs/experience/devotionalforwomen/2008/05/01/jehovah-saboath/#comments

Every Day Light, Strangers and Pilgrims http://www.christianity.com/devotionals/everydaylight/546676/

Christianity.com, Endless Love: http://www.christianity.com/Home/Christian%20Living%20Features/11574279/

Encouragement for Today, Going Through Trouble: http://thelife.com/blogs/experience/devotionalforwomen/2008/04/30/goingthroughtrouble/#comments

Christianity.com, Where Does Your Help Come From: http://www.christianity.com/devotionals/encouragement/11574516/

Christianity.com, I Fought the Law, David Burchett: http://www.christianity.com/blogs/DBurchett/11574526/

Every Day Light, The Crucified "Self": http://christianity.com/devotionals/everydaylight/546680/

The Berean, Genesis 3:6: http://theberean.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Home.showBerean/BereanID/5195/Genesis-3-6