“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
PROVERBS 9-10
1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-32
JOURNAL
Every day is a new day, full of possibility, challenge, and adventure. The question is always: how will I see it? Do I view it through faith and expectancy, or do I allow worry and anxiety to cloud it, dreading what might go wrong? This is where the test of faith becomes very real. It is all in how I understand my life, my place, and the role God has called me to play. Have I truly surrendered as His agent in this world, or am I simply treating Him like a genie, someone to call on only when times are hard? The truth is, I live in both realities. To be human is to wrestle with self-absorption, but also to be given the God-given capacity to love and sacrifice for others.
I remember vividly that point of surrender in Belize in 1989. It was a conscious moment when I knew I had to decide. I chose to surrender to God. Yet the years since have shown me that surrender is not a one-time act, it is a daily discipline. Each morning I have to choose to yield my heart again. When I neglect this, when I let circumstances or emotions convince me that I am fine on my own, I drift into pride and self-reliance. But when I open God’s Word and pray, something shifts. It doesn’t shield me from hardship, but it reorients me, lifting my eyes from my limited perspective to an eternal one.
In that way, I resonate with Paul’s confession in 1 Corinthians: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Grace shapes me, not my striving. That realization became clearer when I first read Mere Christianity. Lewis gave me a perspective on the gospel that I felt I could trust after years of doubt. He helped me see that following Christ is not about trying to earn heaven, but about living as someone in whom heaven has already begun to take root. That truth steadies me even now.
Still, the battle never ends. My shadow side is always present, whispering that life should be lived to get rather than to serve. And yet God, in His mercy, created me with this constant need to cling to Him. Proverbs says, “The way of the Lord is a refuge for the blameless, but it is the ruin of those who do evil” (Proverbs 10:29). In Him, I find refuge. When I surrender, He fills me with peace that is not of my own making.
Therefore I can turn to Philippians and know that peace and joy are promised and that truly is enough...
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