Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis was an extraordinary man. A former atheist, his encounter with the living God and his love for Him, shine through his writings. Of his many books that I've read so far, Mere Christianity is my favorite. It made me really think. Two things in particular, the first that God created us with a mind and he intended us to use it, not to believe everything we hear and are taught, but to continually test everything by Him. He is our standard.

The other, since we can not live up to his perfect standard, is the question Jesus asks of us all... "Who do you say that I am?" Is he the Savior we can put our complete trust in or was he just crazy. This well-known paragraph from the end of chapter three made me think about how important it is to answer this question, even as Christians, because being a Christian is really about knowing and trusting Jesus and who he says he is.

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." C. S. Lewis

"Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." John 14:6

"And the high priest answered and said to Him, "I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!"
Jesus said to him, "It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." Matthew 26:63-64

"Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, "Are You the King of the Jews?" Jesus said to him, "It is as you say." Matthew 27:11

Lewis was a teacher who met Jesus. He came to realized Jesus was not just a teacher of God and his ways, but that Jesus was actually God himself. I love Lewis's writings because he didn't mince words, he said it like it is. He wasn't a preacher, but spoke with the courage of one. Jesus wasn't a symbol to him or an idea, Jesus wasn't a consciousness, and he wasn't just a teacher to Lewis...he was his Savior, the Son of God.

I also love what Oswald Chambers says about this in his July 21st entry of My Utmost for His Highest:

"Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to teaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it...But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach--He came to make me what He teaches I should be."
 

                                            Matthew 16:13-17

"When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, 'Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?' 
So they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' 
He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' 
Simon Peter answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' 
Jesus answered and said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven."