Tuesday, February 10, 2009

De we need to fight more?


Over at Boundless Jonathan Dodson writes:

The phone rang. It was our worship leader. With trembling speech he said: "Hey man, it's an emergency. I made a huge mistake." Within minutes I was dealing with a broken worship leader, a moral failure, a threatened marriage and a leadership crisis.

Weeks later, we were still trying to come to a mutual understanding of what the restoration process would look like. One of the things we agreed upon was to start a Fight Club.

We met while most people were still sleeping, around 6 a.m., every week. We got together to talk about our flesh and how well we're fighting it. In our first meeting, we considered what was riding on the fight by reading an excerpt of a letter from one demon to another:

We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.... Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings to himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct. (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

We were sobered by the fact that Satan is set against us, that he wants to devour us by provoking our flesh, by tempting us to sin. But we were also encouraged by the fact that God is for us, that He has called us sons and is set on drawing us away from the fleeting pleasures of sin into the pleasures in his presence (Psa. 16:11).

And so the fight began.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

1 comment:

nailed to the doors said...

"In a word, the difference betwixt a religious and a wicked man is, that in the one, Divine life bears sway, in the other, the animal life doth prevail."

"...we cannot excuse ourselves by the pretence of impossibility; for sure our outward man is some way in our power; we have some command of our feet, and hands, and tongue, nay, and or our thoughts and fancies too, at least so far as to divert them from impure and sinful objects, and to turn our mind another way: and we should find this power and authority much strengthened and advanced if we were careful to manage and exercise it. In the mean while, I acknowledge our corruptions are so strong, and our temptations so many, that it will require a great deal of steadfastness and resolution, of whatchfulness and care, to preserve ourselves, ..."

"The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love:.."

All quotes from Henry Scougal "The Life of God in the Soul of Man