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Becoming a Citizen

C.S. Lewis has this thought experiment that I love.

He says that each decision we make, whether good or evil, selfish or beautiful, greedy or holy, each decision changes our soul.  It changes the essence of who we are.

And over a lifetime, as we each make millions of these decisions each moment, our souls become better fit to live in either heaven or hell.  The sum of these decisions turns our soul into either a citizen of heaven or a citizen of hell.  If we make enough bad decisions, if we grow to love evil more than good, then our soul belongs in hell.  Not as a punishment or out of vindictiveness, but because that is what we have chosen and our soul could survive in heaven.  On the other side, our love of beauty and good, turns our soul into a citizen of heaven.

Remember, this is a thought experiment and not a Biblical Truth.  Man can choose to do good only if he abides in Christ and the Holy Spirit makes the choice with him.

It helps me though to remember that I am a citizen of the heavenly kingdom.

I should live that way.  In every decision I should choose the beautiful, the good, the holy, the selfless. 

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Q: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?

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The Mother Teresa Exception

I’ve been reading through the Old Testament lately.  I see verses like this all of the time:

¹¹“The multitude of your sacrifices—
       what are they to me?” says the LORD.
       “I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
       of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
       I have no pleasure
       in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

 ¹² When you come to appear before me,
       who has asked this of you,
       this trampling of my courts?

 ¹³ Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
       Your incense is detestable to me.
       New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
       I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

 ¹⁴ Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
       my soul hates.
       They have become a burden to me;
       I am weary of bearing them.

 ¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer,
       I will hide my eyes from you;
       even if you offer many prayers,
       I will not listen.
       Your hands are full of blood;

 ¹⁶ wash and make yourselves clean.
       Take your evil deeds
       out of my sight!
       Stop doing wrong,

 ¹⁷ learn to do right!
       Seek justice,
       encourage the oppressed.
       Defend the cause of the fatherless,
       plead the case of the widow.”  Isaiah 1:11-17

I keep looking at my life and realizing that I am just as guilty of this now as Israel was then. It’s breaks my heart that the Church today is guilty also.  That the Mother Teresa’s of the world are the exception amongst believers and not the rule.  That we look less like Jesus than we do the pharisees.

That I look more like a pharisee.

I am learning and striving now.  Something I wasn’t doing even 6 months ago.

May I truly learn and change and become.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  James 1:27