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C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis Daily – Today’s Reading

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TO MRS. JOHNSON: On the real meaning of heaven—enjoying God forever.

25 May 1957

It was nice to hear from you again. I can’t remember how up to date you are with my news. Did I tell you that a new element of both beauty and tragedy had entered my life? I am newly married, and to a dying woman (She was the Joy Davidman whose Smoke on the Mountain, a lively modern treatment of the Ten Commandments, you may have read. An American). She is, and I try to be, very brave. I acquired two schoolboy stepsons. I myself am, not dangerously, but painfully and disablingly, ill with a slipped disc. So life is rather full. . . .

. . . Of course Heaven is leisure (‘there remaineth a rest for the people of God’ [Hebrews 4:9]): but I picture it pretty vigorous too as our best leisure really is. Man was created ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ Whether that is best pictured as being in love, or like being one of an orchestra who are playing a great work with perfect success, or like surf bathing, or like endlessly exploring a wonderful country or endlessly reading a glorious story—who knows? Dante says Heaven ‘grew drunken with its universal laughter.’

Pray for us both.

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

Compiled in Yours, Jack

The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Nothing New     

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greglaurie

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. —Ecclesiastes 1:9

Joy Davidman, the wife of C. S. Lewis, made this insightful statement about the pursuit of pleasure: “Living for his own pleasure is the least pleasurable thing a man can do; if his neighbors don’t kill him in disgust, he will die slowly of boredom and lovelessness.” And that is true. It has been said that the only cure for hedonism is to try and practice it.

The pursuit of pleasure is nothing new. As Solomon reminds us a number of times in the book of Ecclesiastes, when you boil it down, there is nothing new under the sun. Though our technology has changed and we have had certain advancements since Solomon wrote those words, the basic cravings of humanity have not changed, nor have the basic things we look to. The philosophy of eat, drink, and be merry has been with us for a long time.

When Solomon decided he would pursue everything this world had to offer, He was not considering God in all of it. He was living horizontally — he had adapted a worldview that omitted God. Eventually he came to realize there was nothing to profit from under the sun. It was only when Solomon looked above the sun and looked to God that he found the answers he was seeking. When we see God for who He is, we will see the world for what it is.

If you have a close relationship with God and are walking closely with Him, you will recognize philosophies, concepts, and ideologies being propagated that are contradictory to what the Bible teaches. When you are walking closely with God, you will see this world for what it is.

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013