REJECT DISTORTED DOCTRINE
17/11/24 11:19
In the introduction to the collected saying of George MacDonald, C.S Lewis observes that ‘On the intellectual side his history is largely a history of escape from the theology (Calvinism) in which he had been brought up.’ (1) MacDonald would not be alone in this kind of journey. Rejecting distorted doctrine is the adventure to which all are called but not everyone answers. Like the dwarves in ‘The Last Battle’ they accommodate themselves to the un-life that is theirs.
THE DOOR
It was MacDonald’s pursuit of Christ and His desire to enjoy Him as Himself that led to his emancipation from something distorted to something life-giving. One can only hope that there are more who love the Christ who is life enough to pursue truth over pumping up their inherited beliefs, imagined sinecures and supposed identities in ‘the contract’ that they have going for themselves.
THE LIVING LIFE
There’s a life that is Christ as us that far exceeds dualistic obeisance to formulaic religion. This life is alive and not stifled by making excuses for the status quo. And attempting to build a self out of rationalisations that contain Believers in a form of captivity, that as sons of God they do not deserve. Don’t be among those who deny and rationalise the error to maintain the status quo and an imagined legacy.
CHRIST PLUS NOTHING
‘Gospels’ are harmful enough when they are the result of truth decay. Much worse when they are the result of fraud and cultish supposition. MacDonald is well aware that we do best when we add nothing to Christ or refrain from attempting to subtract from Him, or affix to His Gospel some ‘other gospel.’ Rather we rest in Jesus and exult in the fact that in Him we can just be. To be ourselves in Christ is to permit Christ to be us in order that we may receive Him as He is and become in Him that which He means us to be.
“That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge.””
(1) George MacDonald by C.S. Lewis.