Climbing the ladder of His will: Screwtape Letters

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Screwtape Letters

Just today I started reading a book by C.S. Lewis called "The Screwtape Letters". It's about a demon writing to his nephew. Sounds morbid doesn't it? Well it isn't meant to be, in fact it has some very well principles to think through. I just read chapter 1. It is amazing.
Screwtape is writing to his nephew, Wormwood. The general gist of the chapter is this:

"If one gets happy, busy, obsessed, or used to the physical and tangible, then he won't really have time or need for the Spiritual."

The key of Satan isn't necessarily to get us to SIN in the way we think. He didn 't tempt Jesus to go kill his mother, no he tried to get him to FORSAKE his Father, which is the most dangerous sin of all. Satan has done this to MANY believers, those who go to church, but that's it. He has them in his clutches, they think that they are being active in their faith because they go to church, but in reality they are farther from Christ than the guy who works sundays and goes to church on wednesday nights because he can't make it for normal service! He can also deter our course to Christ with Theology, by just knowing the facts and getting distracted in the truth, but without the truth. It would be like if I memorized the whole Bible...wow, great! But I could be a rotten person, see, we can be tricked into just getting the facts into our head and not our life. Worship is another, look at the pharisees, they showed plenty of signs of worship, they prayed and fasted...but they were a brood of vipers. Don't let just worship be "enough" for you. It should overflow into action. (I'm not saying praise and thanks to God isn't good) But Satan will do his best to skew and twist anything that he possibly can. Sitting there every sunday and lifting your hands and singing praises isn't enough. True worship is worship through your life. By being always in submission to God.
Be wary, be very wary....Satan isn't stupid, he didn't came right out and tell Eve he was the devil. He is crafty, and wants us to think that he is not. C.S. lewis said in another one of his books (Mere Christianity, if I remember correctly) that you can't fight a battle you don't believe exists. Think about that, are you daily fighting Satan? It is a battle, a war, who is on the Lord's side?

5 Comments:

At 9:41 AM, Blogger Emily said...

Applying the truths of scripture to my life is something I struggle with a lot. It's easy to become satisfied with just having a good knowledge of theology without really living it out. But you're exactly right...true worship is aiming to bring glory to God in ALL things, not just on sunday mornings.

 
At 10:27 AM, Blogger Keith M. said...

I'm feeling the spiritual opposition for writing that article....hehe

 
At 3:27 PM, Blogger Katherine C said...

I feel the same way about that book, it is amazing!! It was extremely helpful for me.

 
At 6:20 PM, Blogger Keith M. said...

Yeah, the first chapter is just LOADED. It's definately one of c.s lewis' best writings.

 
At 5:29 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

i've always loved c.s. lewis and this post is REALLY good. i remember when you showed it to me earlier in the year and now i'm finally commenting on it. it still threw me back even though it's probably the third time i've read it! great stuff.
:]

 

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