Decieved by my elite status?
What is the difference between God produced Faith and self induced faith? The question is are we connected to the vine in reality or just in mental ascent. Is the missing part of us yearning after itself or after a greater connection to the giver of the parts who himself is whole!
We live with the light of our praise looming and lighting our path, or we live with the light of Christ sacrifice for our sins lighting our path. One path is well lit and the light is guiding us blindly to our destruction and the other is sometimes very very dark and we have only a flashlight of our understanding that we deserve Hell to follow. You are great, you are great, says the devil! and afterward he boasts. I have him!
Does he have us or does God? False faith despises this question. Never should you look at your steps and see where they are leading you. Look only at the imagination of your heart being attached to Christ. Is that a real or a false imagination? do we know where our activities lead us?
Herod’s words were so beautiful that all the people felt comforted and exalted him as a god for being so eloquent. The worms came to prove that they were deceived and ate him up. That is the deception of elitism. I am right because I can prove my point with magical words?
Lofty speech not with standing, God’s word is the plumbline{straight or crooked} . do we want to feel good or do we want to get things accomplished. Do we want to stomp out the wine on the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored? We must get dirty in our speech and in our activity to get to where the grapes of our demise live, deep in our dirty hearts…
My Dear Wormwood,
You report in your last letter that your patient intends to purchase a “good study bible” with the determination to begin regular readings. My dear nephew, calm yourself, as you seem rather troubled by this decision. If well managed, there is no cause for concern. You fail to remember the countless patients, firmly in the grasp of our father below, who own multiple copies of that ancient book.
I would in fact go as far as to advise you to encourage both the purchase and the intended readings. You see, your influence in how your patient reads the book can be very useful to your mission. Instead of weaning the ambition, make it your aim to twist her motivation for reading. Make it all about her—her determination to be a “good Christian,” the application of truth to her life, the importance of gaining the Enemy’s favor. Whatever it may be, at no point should knowledge of the Enemy Himself be the goal.
Allow me to explain. I once had a patient who began to claim allegiance to the Enemy. Rather than discourage the profession, I gradually molded her understanding of Christianity to that sugary version that focuses strictly on the self. She was made to see her faith as merely ethical—her focus on kindness and fair treatment of others. This, she believed, was the primary objective of the faith; she saw it as the embodiment of the Enemy's very nature—an unconditional love that excuses all terms and conditions for the sake of human happiness and fulfillment. Certain of this supposition, she read the Book mostly to affirm her view. Delightful!
You begin to see my point, I hope. Rather than dissuade the readings, make the readings about her. Let every passage be application for her life rather than knowledge of the Enemy and His work. By this, she will steadily restrict herself to the “relevant passages” and will seek to understand them primarily for their usefulness to her life. In so doing, she becomes the central agent of her own change and yet barely changes since she remains anemic and infantile in her understanding of the truth. The possible results are too delicious to consider: discouragement, indifference, guilt, justification of sin, you name it!
Pardon my mention of these things, Wormwood. I hate even to write them. But they must be said for that is in fact what that Book claims. And know for certain that every inch of it drips with these vexatious assertions! To our Enemy, there is no “irrelevant” portion to these Writings.
They ALL speak of HIM! Each part echoes with that horrid news of His salvation of the human creature from His own wrath, sin and eternal death.
That, Wormwood, is why I charge you to keep your Patient’s attention away from the Enemy and largely on herself! Let her “study” be self-centered and petty; and then lukewarm and halfhearted until she gives it up all together for something more interesting—but always resolving to “get back to it.” Do this nephew, and prove yourself useful to the cause.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape*
* This post is inspired by C.S. Lewis' 1942 satirical book on demonic temptation and God's triumph,
The Screwtape Letters.
