C.S. Lewis once faced the question: Won't pursuing Christian holiness make me naive, less worldly-wise, less experienced? If I follow the principles of the gospel won't I become sheltered, unaware and irrelevant? In other words, won't following Christ make me a sissy? To this objection, Lewis wrote:
"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simpbly does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in... Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity p. 142
Christian theology insists that Jesus Christ is the truest, most perfect, most glorious human being who has ever lived - and that those who want to experience true, full, rich humanness must become like him, must pattern their lives after Jesus' humanity.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7) Jesus announces that the life of heaven, which had seemed so distant and unreal, is in the process of coming true on earth. These are not rules that need to be obeyed in order to be rewarded. Things to avoid if you want to make it to heaven. Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion. He came proclaiming a new kingdom, and he has invited us to participate in it.
This Sermon is a radical call to action. A revolutionary new way of life. Jesus' follower are told to 'turn the other cheek' to 'love their enemies' and to 'invest their treasure in heaven.' But all of these demands are ultimately summons, calls, invitations - beckoning us to experience real, true, beautiful and good humanness.
It is by imitating Christ - conforming my thoughts, beliefs and desires to his - that I become more fully alive, not less.
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