Daily Archives: June 26, 2015

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Serving God With a Soft Heart

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Jonah 4

What most people know about Jonah is that he was swallowed by a big fish while trying to run from God. In the creature’s belly, he committed to following the Lord’s will. So when Jonah was called a second time to preach repentance in Nineveh, he obeyed.

After the prophet obeyed, there was an unexpected turn of events. He crossed the city, warning the people of divine wrath—and they responded by turning away from wickedness. The Ninevites’ response should have made Jonah ecstatic. Instead, he grieved over their repentance and God’s mercy on them, as Nineveh and Israel were longtime enemies. In fact, he angrily told the Lord he had fled to Tarshish to avoid this very scenario of penitence and forgiveness.

Jonah was displeased because his heart was as hard as when he had run to Tarshish. Trapped inside the fish, he changed his mind about following the Lord’s command. He expressed willingness to do whatever God wanted him to do, but in his heart, he still desired the Ninevites’ destruction. Jonah’s bitterness and reluctance showed through in spite of his righteous actions.

God is not fooled by good behavior that springs from a hard heart. Obeying Him with an unwilling spirit may achieve His purpose, but we lose the joy of our reward. Perhaps the Lord has called you to serve Him in a way that is personally challenging. As you commit to following His will, pray also for a soft heart. You will find peace and blessing in doing the work if you follow Him without hesitation.

Bible in One Year: Psalms 79-84

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Hidden Mysteries

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Read: 2 Kings 6:15-23

Bible in a Year: Job 5-7; Acts 8:1-25

Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. —2 Kings 6:16

Most of what goes on in the universe we never see. Many things are too small or move too fast or even too slow for us to see. Using modern technology, however, filmmaker Louis Schwartzberg is able to show stunning video images of some of those things—a caterpillar’s mouth, the eye of a fruit fly, the growth of a mushroom.

Our limited ability to see the awesome and intricate detail of things in the physical world reminds us that our ability to see and understand what’s happening in the spiritual realm is equally limited. God is at work all around us doing things more wonderful than we can imagine. But our spiritual vision is limited and we cannot see them. The prophet Elisha, however, actually got to see the supernatural work that God was doing. God also opened the eyes of his fearful colleague so he too could see the heavenly army sent to fight on their behalf (2 Kings 6:17).

Fear makes us feel weak and helpless and causes us to think we are alone in the world. But God has assured us that His Spirit in us is greater than any worldly power (1 John 4:4).

Whenever we become discouraged by the evil we can see, we need to think instead about the good work God is doing that we cannot see. —Julie Ackerman Link

Lord, I’m tempted to fear what I cannot understand or control. But my security rests in You and not in what happens to me or around me. Help me to rest in Your unfailing love.

Eyes of faith see God at work in everything.

INSIGHT: Scripture speaks of unseen angels protecting God’s people (Ps. 34:7; Dan. 3:25-28; Matt. 4:6; Acts 5:19; 12:7). They are God’s “servants—spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14 nlt).

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – An Evangelist’s Journey

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I was a baby when my parents became Christians. We were living in Australia. My father, a university lecturer, had been asking deep questions about purpose and meaning for a while when God dramatically broke into his life. Up late one night, marking some of his students’ papers, he had an overwhelming vision in which he saw his own life, including all of his regrets, from the perspective of Jesus. At the end of this, he saw Christ on the cross and found himself on his knees. Having been raised by an atheist father, he did not know much about the Bible. The only phrase he could remember was “Lord I believe, help my unbelief,” and so after saying this, he got up off the floor a changed man. My mother made her own decision to follow Christ six months later after a lot of questioning and searching. My sister and I were suddenly now members of a Christian family.

A couple of years later we moved back to the UK for my father to study theology and prepare for church leadership. He is a gifted and passionate evangelist. Some of my earliest childhood memories are around people discovering Christ for themselves in our home. I still frequently meet people who came to know the Lord through my parents. Sharing what we had discovered as such good news was a completely natural part of our lives. It was something that happened in the course of mundane tasks and daily friendships. It wasn’t something I saw anybody worrying about.

When I started school, I remember meeting children and asking them if they wanted to become Christians. Through a couple of them, their whole families ended up coming to know the Lord and we are still in touch on Facebook now! It wasn’t until secondary school that I really thought about being an evangelist myself. I remember feeling very nervous on my first day at this new school; I didn’t know anyone in my class and I prayed with my family for a Christian friend. On the bus on the way home, I chatted to a friend I had made that day and we started talking about God. She was very open and the next day at school she announced that she was now a Christian. This girl became my closest friend over the next years; God had answered my prayer.

As the teenage years kicked in I became involved with a ministry of YWAM, which was called Kings Kids. We went all over the world doing performing arts and evangelism in the summer holidays. The leaders were absolutely phenomenal Christians who believed that children and young people could minister in the power of the Holy Spirit. In 1991, shortly after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, a team of us went to the Czech Republic. Thousands were on the streets of Prague and we were performing on Charles Bridge and Wensceslas Square. As a fifteen year old I was given the opportunity to share testimonies and preach the gospel in the open air to these crowds. The leaders seemed to think this was absolutely natural and normal; age was no barrier to seeing the Kingdom of God come. Amazing miracles happened on that trip; we saw God at work first hand. In 1994 a team of us were in Uzbekistan and the national television crew came to film what we are doing. I was to preach in this closed country, God again opening such an amazing door.

Kings Kids laid a foundation of mission in my life and at university quite a few of my friends became Christians. But it was at Oxford that I discovered the need for apologetics in evangelism. I remember spending eight hours one day talking to a Jewish friend about the Christian faith. He was terrifyingly intelligent and kept on asking me questions; he had only popped around to my room to borrow something but as we fell into conversation I faced a barrage of questions and objections with no let up. Another friend had grown up in a Christian family but was now studying biology and had become a born-again atheist under the influence of his hero Richard Dawkins. After many late night conversations he confided his despair at the prospect of a godless, hopeless universe but I was unable to convince him otherwise. The need for equipping in apologetics was very real to me. Meanwhile, forty of my friends came to hear Michael Green preach at a mission event and one of the most hardened anti-Christians of the lot secretly signed up for the follow-up course. “Don’t tell anyone—but will you come with me?” was the message slid under my door. What an incredible joy to pray with her only three weeks later.

Discovering a passion for evangelism and preaching was a slow process for me; there wasn’t really a moment when I suddenly knew this was what I was called to be. But from childhood into my teens and then at university, many encouraged me and gave me opportunities to share the gospel I had so grown to love. For all of those people—and for the power of Christ to change lives—I am incredibly thankful.

Amy Orr-Ewing is EMEA Director for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and Director of Programmes for the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics in Oxford, Endland.

Alistair Begg

Alistair Begg – Examine Yourself

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You have become like us!

Isaiah 14:10

What must be the apostate professor’s doom when his naked soul appears before God? How will he bear to hear that voice telling him that he is banished forever from His presence and that he will not be the recipient of mercy?

“Depart from Me, you cursed; you have rejected knowledge, and I reject you.” What will be this wretch’s shame at the last great day when, before the assembled crowds, the apostate shall be unmasked? See the profane, and sinners who never professed faith, lifting themselves up from their beds of fire to point at him. “There he is,” says one; “will he preach the gospel in hell?” “There he is,” says another; “he rebuked me for cursing and was a hypocrite himself!” “Aha!” says another; “here comes a psalm-singing Methodist–one who was always at his meeting; he is the man who boasted of his being sure of everlasting life, and here he is!”

No greater eagerness will ever be seen among satanic tormentors than in that day when devils drag the hypocrite’s soul down to perdition. Bunyan pictures this with massive but awful grandeur of poetry when he speaks of the back way to hell. Seven devils bound the wretch with nine cords and dragged him from the road to heaven, in which he had professed to walk, and thrust him through the back door into hell.

Watch out for that back way to hell, professors! “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.”1 Pay attention to your condition, and see whether you are in Christ or not. It is the easiest thing in the world to give high marks when grading your own paper. Be honest and fair. Be gracious to all, but be rigorous with yourself. Remember, if you are not building on the rock, your house will collapse. May the Lord give you sincerity, constancy, and firmness; and in no day, however evil, may you be led to turn aside.

1) 2 Corinthians 13:5

Devotional material is taken from “Morning and Evening,” written by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg.

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – A home mission sermon

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“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest” Ecclesiastes 9:10

Suggested Further Reading: Luke 22:24-27

George Washington, the commander-in-chief, was going around among his soldiers. They were hard at work, lifting a heavy piece of timber at some fortification. There stood the corporal of the regiment calling out to his men, “Heave there, heave ahoy!” and giving them all kinds of directions. As large as possible the good corporal was. So Washington, alighting from his horse, said to him, “What is the good of your calling out to those men, why don’t you help them yourself and do part of the work.” The corporal drew himself up and said, “Perhaps you are not aware to whom you are speaking, sir; I am a corporal.” “I beg your pardon,” said Washington; “you are a corporal are you; I am sorry I should have insulted you.” So he took off his own coat and waistcoat and set to work to help the men build the fortification. When he had done he said, “Mr Corporal, I am sorry I insulted you, but when you have any more fortifications to get up, and your men won’t help you, send for George Washington, the commander-in-chief, and I will come and help them.” The corporal slunk away perfectly ashamed of himself. And so Christ Jesus might say to us, “Oh, you don’t like teaching the poor; it is beneath your dignity; then let your commander-in-chief do it; he can teach the poor, he can wash the feet of the saints, he can visit the sick and afflicted—he came down from heaven to do this, and he will set you the example.” Surely we should each be ashamed of ourselves, and declare from this time forward whatever it is, be it great or little, if it comes to our hand, and if God will but give us help and give us grace, we will do it with all our might.

For meditation: Our Master knew how to be humble (Philippians 2:6-9); he also knows how to deal with people who are proud or humble (1 Peter 5:5-6).

Sermon no. 259

26 June (1859)

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Having a Faith That Works

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“What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? . . . You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone” (James 2:14, 24).

True faith produces good works.

Many false teachers claim that you can earn your own salvation by doing good works. Most Christians understand the heresy of that teaching, but some become confused when they read that “a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). That seems to conflict with Paul’s teaching on salvation by grace through faith.

But when properly understood, James’ teaching on salvation is perfectly consistent with Paul’s. Paul clearly taught salvation by grace. In Ephesians 2:8-9 he says, “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” But Paul also taught that true salvation results in good works, for in the next verse he says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

In Titus 3:5 he says that God “saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy”; but Titus 2:11-12 clarifies that God’s grace leads us “to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.” That’s the proper balance between faith and works.

James also taught salvation by grace. He said that God redeems sinners by the Word of truth and implants His Word within them to enable them to progress in holiness (James 1:18, 21). That’s a divine work, not a human effort. James 2:14-24 follows that up by telling us how we can know that work has taken place: there will be more than just a proclamation of faith but a faith that does good works.

Don’t be confused by how faith relates to good works. Put the two together by being a living testimony to God’s saving grace.

Suggestions for Prayer

Thank God for the righteousness He is producing in your life. Look for specific ways to demonstrate your faith to those around you today.

For Further Study

Read John 8:31-32.

  • What is the mark of a true disciple?
  • What effect does God’s Word have on those who heed what it says?
Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Shake It Off!

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…And you will be given a new name by the Lord’s own mouth. Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City” or “The Desolate Land.” Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight” and “The Bride of God,” for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his bride. (Isaiah 62:2, 4 NLT)

Have you ever noticed all the people throughout the Bible that God gave a fresh start? Moses was an old man before he had an encounter with a burning bush and was called by God to lead a nation. Then David, a humble shepherd boy, was anointed to be the king of Israel. Peter, the apostle who denied Christ, was forgiven and called to spend the rest of his life preaching and glorifying God. And Paul, who once persecuted God’s people, was transformed on the road to Damascus and ended up writing much of the New Testament.

When you think about all the people throughout the Scriptures whom God forgave, redeemed and used in mighty ways, can you doubt that He is able to do the same for you? Our God is the God of “do overs,” second chances, fresh starts and new beginnings. And He doesn’t have any limit on how many you can have. But sometimes, we lose sight of what God can do because of something in the past that has us stuck, unable to move forward with the wonderful plans He so desperately wants to reveal to us.

For me, it was the memory of sexual abuse I experienced as a child. For many years I was stuck in a place of anger and bitterness because of what happened to me. I had a big chip on my shoulder and wanted someone to pay for what had happened to me. I took my feelings out on everybody around me. Then I would feel guilty for the way I was, get on my knees and pray over and over again “Please forgive me, Lord.” Then finally one day I heard God way down in my spirit say, Joyce, I forgave you the first time you asked me. Now you have to forgive yourself and move on. I had to receive His free gift of grace so I could release my past, and little by little, move on from it.

Frozen in a Moment

Maybe you’re stuck, frozen in a moment. It might be past abuse. It could be a personal failure of some kind or something completely beyond your control, like an illness or the death of a loved one. Perhaps you’ve been disappointed by an unmet expectation—nothing turned out the way you wanted it to. So you think, it’s over. It’s too late for me.

But it isn’t too late. It’s never too late to have a fresh start when you have life in Christ. Your past is not your destiny. If you refuse to give up hope, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you out of your “stuck” place, not only will God restore what you had, He will make your life even better:

And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten—the hopping locust, the stripping locust, and the crawling locust, My great army which I sent among you. And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you. And My people shall never be put to shame. (Joel 2:25-26 AMP)

You Gotta’ Get Out of the Boat

You have a bright future waiting for you. God’s Word promises, For I know the plans I have for you…plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT).

But you have to learn to take a step of faith. Just like Peter, you can’t walk on water if you won’t get out of the boat (see Matthew 14:28-29). It may be harder than you thought—and it may cost you something. But if you follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, it will produce good fruit in your life.

Romans 6:13 (NLT) says, …Give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

So often God leads but we don’t want to go where He’s leading. We must learn how to yield instead of being resistant—learn to surrender instead of being stubborn. When you do, you will enjoy your life, even when things don’t turn out exactly the way you wanted them to. And if God asks you to give something up, understand that He’s not trying to take away something you like or want just to be mean. God always has your best interest at heart. Trust where He’s taking you.

Baby Steps of Faith

Second Corinthians 5:17 says if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. When you were born again, He gave you a new heart and a new way of living. But in the beginning, we are all like babies learning to walk. When babies take their first steps, they fall down many times. But they always get back up and try again. God is asking you to do the same thing.

When you fall down in life, you have to get back up, regroup and take another step. But no matter how many times you fall down, eventually you will get to where you need to be—if you will simply choose not to give up. Your new beginning is closer than you think. Just keep walking!

And He Who is seated on the throne said, See! I make all things new…(Revelation 21:5 AMP)

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Knowledge and Wisdom

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“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere” (James 3:17).

“Donkeys laden with books,” a phrase in rabbinical literature, is descriptive of those who know much but still remain fools.

Another expression says that “knowledge is power.” True, but how is the knowledge used – beneficially or malevolently? That is a vitally important question. We have more knowledge than ever before, but a few would claim that we have more wisdom.

Going faster and faster, we may be still going astray. Just as grapes are not picked from a bramble bush, neither can the good life be harvested from sowing wild oats.

For a nation of people, many of whom are “educated beyond their intelligence,” as an anonymous wit once observed, America sorely lacks a sufficiency of men with real wisdom – that which is given by the Lord Himself.

In our modern education, we seem to be preoccupied with the accumulation of knowledge, to the neglect of that wisdom which alone can save us from the misuse of knowledge.

William Lyon Phelps, famous English professor at Yale University and a godly statesman, once said, “If I could choose between a knowledge of the Bible and a college education, I would readily choose the knowledge of the Bible.”

If we lack wisdom, God’s wisdom, we need only ask of Him and He will grant it when we ask in faith, according to His promise in James 1:5.

Bible Reading: James 3:13-18

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: In order to live a supernatural life I’ll look for divine wisdom from the proper source – God, His Word, and His indwelling Holy Spirit.

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; C.P. – Inside Out

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Everybody loves fairy tales like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid where the characters are not who they appear on the outside. What truly matters in these stories is who they are on the inside.

Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.

Luke 21:3

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day may have only seen the widow’s two copper coins (not much to support the synagogue), but Christ saw her heart. He saw her as a giver, one truly devoted to God despite the size of her offering. When Samuel went to anoint David as king, he first saw David’s seven brothers who seemed more likely to be God’s candidate. God said, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7) When a Samaritan woman asked about the correct place to worship, Jesus said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

Come to the Lord, thankful that He sees your heart. He knows everything about you and still loves and forgives you. He sees your weaknesses, but He also sees your strengths and potential. Pray, too, for your nation’s leaders to realize in their hearts their need to be transformed by God from the inside out.

Recommended Reading: II Corinthians 5:16-21

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Stand Your Ground

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So Pharaoh said, “I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only you shall not go very far away. Intercede for me.”—Exodus 8:28

It would have been tempting for Moses to compromise with Pharaoh. But God had told Moses to go three days’ journey into the wilderness (see Exodus 3:18), and Moses would accept nothing less. I love that. Moses was a stickler for details.

So many good believers have been brought down by the same strategy that Pharaoh used. “Oh man, pray for me. Intercede for me.”

It’s like when a Christian guy decides to do a little so-called missionary dating. He says to himself, “I will reach her for the Lord. We’ll talk. I’ll bring up my faith. I’ll get her to go to church with me.”

So they go out to dinner. He brings up his faith, and she doesn’t respond all that much. So he talks a little more about his faith the next time—and a little more the next time. Finally they agree to go to church together. But somehow dinner just went a little bit longer than they thought it would, and they don’t make it to church.

You don’t bring people to Christ by making concessions. If you come down to where they are, why would they want to go up to where you were? Stand your ground. Have some conviction.

Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:14). If God says something, He says it for a reason. He says what He means, and He means what He says. We need to do what He says as He says to do it.

Here is the bottom line: If you want to be a Christian, then be a Christian. If you don’t want to be a Christian, then don’t be a Christian. Either go for it or don’t go for it. Make a decision and do it.

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Let God Define Good

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Nothing in the Bible would cause us to call a famine good or a heart attack good or a terrorist attack good. These are terrible calamities, born out of a fallen earth. Yet every message in the Bible compels us to believe that God will mix them with other ingredients, and bring good out of them.

But we must let God define good. Our definition includes health, comfort, and recognition. His definition? In the case of His Son, Jesus Christ, the good life consisted of struggles, storms, and death. But God worked it all together for the greatest of good– His glory and our salvation! At some point we all stand at this intersection. Is God good when the outcome is not? Do you want to know heaven’s clearest answer to the question of suffering? Just take a look at Jesus!

From You’ll Get Through This

Night Light - James & Shirley Dobson

Night Light for Couples – Our Night of Magic

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by Charlotte Carpenter

A slow but steady rain came down all that wintry morning and froze where it fell—on the ground, the trees, the buildings. By mid-afternoon the rain had stopped, and we looked on a crystal world. We were accustomed to the white hoarfrost of winter, but this was something else—a hard, clear coating of solid ice. Our five children, ages five to sixteen, returned from school exclaiming about how good the sledding would be on the steep hill in our pasture.

They took out at once, but they never reached their destination, for between home and hill lay a gently rolling, treeless meadow. Here they found that their sleds would speed over the ice from fence to fence with only the weight of their bodies to keep them going. What fun they had. When they came home to chores and supper, they were so excited. “Mom and Dad, you’ve got to come with us down to the pasture tonight,” they said. They had never seen ice so slippery that they didn’t need a hill for coasting on their sleds.

Why should fortyish parents risk life and limb by going out on a dangerously slick night? They begged until we simply could not refuse them.

Gingerly we made our way to the meadow. Even with rubber footgear, we found it hard to walk. The sleds we pulled kept sliding into the backs of our legs. It was very cold, and my husband, the practical one, carried an armload of wood to build a fire.

We will never forget the unbelievably beautiful sight that met our eyes when we reached the meadow. The moon and stars, shining brilliantly as they do only on clear, cold nights, turned the meadow into a lake of glass. We built our fire at the top of a slight incline. The ice reflected us, and the leaping flames danced on the ice.

Again and again the children and sleds flew over the ground. If two rode together, the sled went faster—so fast the riders could barely turn in time to avoid crashing into the fence. The littlest ones rode back to the starting point, easily pulled by older brothers. We parents envied them—the hardest part for us was walking back after the ride. We left most of the sledding to our children and stayed near the fire, absorbed in the dreamlike magic of the night.

We all felt so good when we started back that we hardly noticed our cold feet and tired bodies.

“Will the ice still be here tomorrow?” one of the children asked.

“Probably not if the sun shines,” I answered. And sure enough, by midmorning the ice was gone, leaving only an expanse of brown grass.

To this day, when we’re in the meadow, whether it’s covered with the luxuriant green of summer or the white snow of winter, we remember the wonder of that night. Despite six other witnesses I harbor a slight doubt that it was real, for the experience seems like something we must have imagined.

My husband and I learned several things that night: to enjoy an interlude of joy when it comes; not to put off our children when they find something wonderful and so unusual that it may never happen again; and not to say, “We’re too busy now. It will have to wait.” We go with them to see a new calf, a robin on the lawn, a butterfly or bug. We share their excitement over a ballgame, a school play, or graduation. For now we know this: Refuse to take the time, and you will miss something precious to hold in memory. A magical sledding on glass in the starlight may happen only once in a lifetime.

Looking ahead…

Young children view the world with a unique blend of awe and urgency. Everything, from a rainbow to a chocolate sundae, is new and exciting to them. And everything needs to be experienced right now!

We sometimes get impatient with this perspective—yet we could learn from it. For as we plow through our endless list of chores and responsibilities, postponing time with our loved ones, life hurtles by— like a sled in a meadow of ice. Before we know it, we’re standing before heaven’s gates, wondering how we got there so fast. Don’t miss the precious nights of magic on the way.

– James C Dobson

From Night Light For Couples, by Dr. James & Shirley Dobson

C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis Daily – Today’s Reading

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TO EDWARD LOFSTROM: On his need to think less and to fulfill his daily duties with charity and justice.

8 March 1959

I very much doubt if any book, least of all a book by me, would much help anyone in the condition you describe. For a book can offer only thoughts and thoughts are not what such a person, perhaps, needs most. One can argue against egoism, but then egoism is not his trouble. If he were a real egoist he would be either bliss- fully unconscious of the fact or else fully convinced that egoism was the rational attitude. You, on the other hand, suffer from a more than ordinary horror of egoism which you share with us all. And therefore, as you will see, the thing you need is not to think more or better about it but to think less: to act unselfishly—that is, charitably and justly—and leave the state of your feelings for God to deal with in His own way and His own time. And this of course you know better than I do.

But how to do it? For the very effort to forget something is itself a remembering of that something! I think, if I were in your shoes I should try to regard this sense of self-imprisonment not at all as a sin but as a mere tribulation, like rheumatism, to be endured in the same way. It has no doubt its medical side: diet, exercise, and recreations might all be considered. And, though this is a hard saying, your early upbringing may have something to do with it. Great piety in the parents can produce in the child a mistaken sense of guilt: may lead him to regard as sin what is really not sin at all but merely the fact that he is a boy and not a mature Christian. At any rate, remember: ‘I cannot turn one hair black or white: but I can brush my hair daily and go to the barber at regular intervals.’ In other words we must divert our efforts from our general condition or frame of mind (which we can’t alter by direct action of the will) to what is in our power—our words and acts. Try to remember that the ‘bottomless sea’ can’t hurt us as long as we keep on swimming. You will be in my prayers.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III