More wise words...

A few years back John MacArthur gave a sermon on the "Humiliation of Christ". As an introduction to his wonderful expository style preaching, he begins with a quote from C.S. Lewis' book "Miracles". It is a beautiful depiction of Christ...I hope you dive in and marvel at Christ' humility and deity.
John MacArthur begins:

"The title of the book is Miracles, its author C. S. Lewis.

He has a chapter in the book entitled "The Grand Miracle,"

it's a chapter on the incarnation. And in that chapter in his inimitable way

he draws some rich analogies for us by which we can view the incarnation.

Let me read you a somewhat extended portion of what he says

because it is so rich.

"In the Christian story God descends to reascend.

He comes down, down from the heights of absolute being

into time and space, down into humanity,

down further still, down to the very roots

and sea bed of the nature He had created.

But He goes down to come up again and bring the ruined world up with Him.

One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden.

He must stoop in order to lift.

He must also disappear under the load

before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off

with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.

Or one may think of a diver,

first reducing himself to nakedness

then glancing in mid air,

then gone with a splash,

vanished, rushing down

through green and warm water

into black and cold water,

down

through increasing pressure

into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay.

Then up again,

back to color and light,

his lungs almost bursting

till suddenly he breaks surface again,

holding in his hand

the dripping precious thing that he went down to recover.

He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light.

Down below where it lay colorless in the dark,

he lost his color, too.

In this descent and reascend,

everyone will recognize a familiar pattern,

a thing written all over the world.

It is the pattern of all vegetable life.

It must belittle itself into something hard, small and deathlike.

It must fall into the ground,

thence the new life reascends.

It is the pattern of all animal generation, too.

There is descent from the full and perfect organisms

into the spermatozoon and ovum and in the dark womb,

a life at first inferior in kind to that of the species which is being reproduced,

then the slow ascent to the perfect embryo,

to the living conscious baby and finally to the adult.

So it is in our moral and emotional life.

The first innocent and spontaneous desires have to submit to the deathlike process of control or total denial.

But from that there is a reascend to fully formed character

in which the strength of the original material all operates

but in a new way.

Death and rebirth go down to go up,

it is a key principle.

Through this bottleneck,

this belittlement,

the highroad nearly always lies,"

end quote."

OUR SURVEY CONTINUES THIS WEEK...

Please let me know the subject you are interested in ...

Parenting:

1-Disciple for small children.

2-Discipline for teens

3-Devotions time with kids

4-Teaching and modeling purity to our girls

5-Protecting our boys from worldly lust

Women:

1-Proverbs 31 Woman

2-Godly friendships

3-Home missions

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