Follow Jesus
The Invitation C.S. Lewis Accepted – And One You, Too, Can Accept
by Dr. Randy Newman
I’ve read enough of C.S. Lewis’s delightful writings to know that he’d be amazed that anyone would be interested in his life and writings and that there would even be websites like this one named after him. He suspected that he and all his work would be forgotten within five years of his death. He could not have been more wrong.
But once he got past the shock of organizations, books and websites with the name C.S. Lewis, he would express deep concern and exhort people to look past him and consider seriously the person, teaching, and work of Jesus.
He would be appalled if people settled for Mere C.S. Lewis instead of Mere Christianity.
If you’ve heard the story of Lewis’s life, you know that the gospel of Jesus Christ dramatically changed him. Lewis would want you to experience that same kind of transformation and connect with a local church that believed the Bible as he did.
Lewis regularly called people to make a decision for Christ before it’s too late. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,
“It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”
Would you like to make a decision to follow Jesus? He would be overjoyed if you did. In fact, you can talk to Him right now through prayer. The Scriptures tell us that if we repent of our sins (are truly sorry for our sin and desire to change) and truly believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, that you can be forgiven and begin a new journey as a disciple of Jesus. As you consider this life-changing (eternity changing!) decision, reflect on these words that Lewis wrote at the very end of his classic book Mere Christianity.
“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.”
“…there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak… The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes everyday and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
If you have made a decision to give yourself to Jesus or if you would like to ask more questions about what it means to be a follower of Christ, we here at the C.S. Lewis Institute would be happy to talk with you. You may contact us at staff@cslewisinstitute.org.
Source: New Reflections Magazine, June 2019 edition, C.S. Lewis Institute
Written by Dr. Randy Newman is the Senior Teaching Fellow for the C.S. Lewis Institute. He posts regularly at his website, Connection Points, helping Christians engage people’s hearts the way Jesus did.
This blog explores the links between the Christian faith and all of life and encourages exploration of common ground between Christians and those with other beliefs. This content can be found at http://www.connectionpoints.us
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