Rats in the Cellar

I have been reading through Mere Christianity, a classic penned by C.S. Lewis.  It is really a terrific resource which deals with a lot of complex aspects of Christianity which he explains exceptionally well.  As an intellectual who once was an atheist, his insights are the product of wisdom from being born again and part of his own personal journey in knowing God.

One consequence of  coming to faith in Christ is a more sharpened sense of our own sinfulness.  Maturity in faith brings a greater sense of our need for Christ to transform us from within.  C.S. Lewis wrote:

When I come to evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed.  And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself.  Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards to those particular acts:  they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated.  On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is?  Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth?  If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats:  It only prevents them from hiding.  In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.  The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.  Apparently the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul.  Now that cellar is out of reach of my conscious will.  I can to some extent control my acts:  I have no direct control over my temperament.  And if (as I said before) what we are matters even more than what we do--if, indeed, what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are--then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about.  And this applies to my good actions too.  How many of them were done for the right motive?  How many for fear of public opinion, or a desire to show off?  How many form a sort of obstinacy or sense of superiority which, in different circumstances, might equally have led to some very bad act?  But I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives.  After the first few steps in the Christian life we realise that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God.  (Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity & the Screwtape Letters: Complete in One Volume. HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.)

I believe God allows us to be put off guard--not because it is a test we must pass or so God can know the conditions of our hearts--but so we will see the rats scrambling for cover in the cellar of our souls.  If we saw rats or evidence of rats because of damage or defecation in the pantry where we store our food, we would take prompt action to eradicate the pests.  We ought to do the same when our sinful reactions come to light.  Shrugging them off emboldens the pests to remain, to breed, to further corrupt the good God has wrought within us by grace.  On our own we could never eradicate or cleanse ourselves from sin, but through faith in Jesus Christ these victories are accomplished.

No Holidays!

Part of the culture shock for me in immigrating to Australia has been adjusting to the amount of annual leave people receive.  The base amount for full-time employees is 4 weeks paid--with 10 sick days a year and something called "long-service leave" which is two additional months off.  If you happened to be sick in the same year long-service leave was taken, this would be almost 4 months off work paid.

Whilst some people's eyes light up at the possibility of that much time off work, something inside of me shudders at the prospect.  Holidays, in my mind, have the connotation "going to work" has for others.  Now I have been blessed and benefited greatly by holiday experiences I have enjoyed with family, but they aren't something I pine for.  Holidays are not a dangling carrot which help me push through the daily grind.  I am satisfied and pleased with my daily work routine, and I love what I do.  Why would I want to create extra hassle and expense to find folks to cover for me?  What is special for me these days is a night in, not out.

People spend time thinking about what a perfect holiday would involve, where they would go or what they would see or do.  Do you know what my idea of the perfect day is?  It would be a day when no one takes a holiday from going to church.  What is the sense in taking holidays from fellowship with heaven?  I'm not talking about those who do not fear God or those who only go out of guilt when asked:  I'm talking about everyone who claims 1) to be a Christian and 2) has a church they call home actually going there for worship and the teaching of the Word all on the same day.  That is my idea of bliss.

Can you imagine it?  It would be like a family reunion with the worship and praise of God at the centre.  The fellowship would be sweet as we gather in unity in the fear of God and love of Jesus Christ.  I know people would look around at others and say, "How wonderful this is!  We should do this more often!"  We can enjoy fellowship in Christ often, and we should.  But alas, this level of unity seems strangely elusive.  Unity is not going to the same building at a particular hour, but in daily following the Saviour who leads us to contribute to church fellowship and the lives of people week after week.  No church is perfect but we have an awesome God; no pastor is without faults but we follow the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ who leads us into green pastures and beside still waters.

For me one day to join believers who gather to seek the LORD is worth a month of holidays spent elsewhere.  I would rather open the door to a brother or sister at church than hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside of my hotel door.  King David wrote in Psalm 84:8-12, "O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah ⁹ O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed. ¹⁰ For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. ¹¹ For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. ¹² O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in You!"  Amen!

Grace Gives Hope

John 3:14-16 says, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  Because Jesus spoke these words to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and ruler in Israel, he had intimate knowledge of this allusion.  It is likely Nicodemus never attached any future significance to what transpired in the wilderness over 1,000 years previous--but Jesus did.

After God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, they became discouraged because of the way He brought them.  They complained against God and Moses for their disappointment and accused God of plotting their demise.  Their biting words were returned in kind by the fangs of venomous snakes God sent among them.  Numbers 21:6-9 reads, "So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. ⁷ Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." ⁹ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived."

The people realised their guilt before God and came to Moses in repentance. Moses prayed for the people and was given a strange command by God:  make a bronze image in the shape of a snake, lift it up on a pole, and all who look upon it will be healed.  The people asked for the snakes to be removed so no additional people would be bitten, but God made a way for those who were bitten to be healed and saved.  On the surface it seems odd God would command to do something forbidden by Law, as Deuteronomy 4:18 expressly forbade crafting an image of a creeping thing or fish lest they worship the image they had made (which later came to pass concerning the bronze serpent in 2 Kings 18:4).  It is no sin for God to make an image, for He created man in His own image.  The fashioning of the bronze serpent was divine foreshadowing of how Jesus Christ would become the express image of God in human form, be lifted up on Calvary, and provide salvation for those under the curse of sin and death.

It is amazing how God created man in His own image, and then humbly put on human flesh to provide atonement for sinners.  The grace of God through the Gospel cost God everything and offered forgiveness and salvation freely to all who will receive it because of His great love.  The children of Israel had given up hope for those already bitten by venomous snakes, but God was not willing for them to perish.  All had the chance of salvation if they would respond in faith to His gracious offer.  Most of those who were healed of their snake bites would fall in the desert, but those who trust in Jesus Christ have eternal life!

The Re-Commitment Trap

In the church I was raised, it was a common occurrence for the pastor to invite people to respond to a message by re-committing their lives to Jesus.  Many times under the conviction of sin I raised my hand or went forward in acknowledgement of my sin and desire to repent.  It is never hard for born-again Christians to see their need for repentance and forgiveness.  We could not be born-again again, so re-commitment was posed as the way back to God for a backslider.  This concept of re-commitment became an endless loop which rested on nothing more than my own resolve and self-control which always fell short.

There is a place for renewal and revival in the life of Christians, but I am convinced the option of re-commitment modeled for me in my youth misses the point.  The more I think about it, the more I am certain the idea of re-commitment is without biblical precedent.  Should Christians commit and entrust themselves to God in faith?  Yes.  But commitment can be independent of faith; it can be empty words of the self-deceived who refuse to repent.  Re-committing to God is not repenting of sin before God.  The biggest issue I have with re-commitment in response to conviction of sin is it is only one side of the coin:  the focus is entirely on me and my best efforts rather than reliance upon God and all Christ has accomplished.

God is more than "committed" to us, for He established an everlasting covenant with the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  When we are convicted for sin and made aware of our backsliding, the call is to return to God in repentance.  If every time we were convicted of sin we "re-committed" our lives to Jesus it is little more than a pledge from a hardened felon.  And that is why when re-commitment is an option, it never seems to stick.  We have not truly repented because we did not need to.  All that was required in that moment of soul-searching was to respond with raising a hand, walking to the front of the church, or seeking prayer and the pressure was relieved.  Having done something we were back in good standing with God again and life continued on as usual--that is, until being called out the following Sunday.

What is tricky about following Jesus is that in a sense it IS a commitment, but again this is only part of the equation.  Better than telling God what we will do, we should confess before God how we have failed and ask forgiveness on the basis of the covenant He has already made with us.  For those in the re-commitment rut their salvation often seems to hinge on their performance rather than receiving the grace of God through His promise.  If we are indeed born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, having been adopted as a child of God by grace through faith in Him, we ought to respond with the humility of the prodigal son in the parable who returned to his father.  He did not come back pledging to do a better job or to make up for his folly:  he said, "I have sinned."  He was filled with a sense of unworthiness and begged to be permitted to serve as a slave but his father hugged and received him as a beloved son.

If you find yourself caught in a perpetual backsliding re-commitment trap, there is hope in Jesus Christ.  Instead of pledging to do better, repent and return to Jesus Christ.  Only God can make a new creation and empower you to walk in the way that fully pleases Him.  Re-commitment is an empty hope based on our feeble efforts, but in Jesus Christ and in His covenant there is strong confidence.