THE HEAVENLY STANDARD Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of Gods mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what Gods will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will. ~ Romans 12:1-2 ** C. S. Lewis said that the most brilliant minds of unredeemed souls are, at best, “thoughts busily working in a vacuum.” That notion makes good sense, if one understands God’s salvation. No doubt, noble philosophers, noble scientists, noble philanthropists, noble politicians, and (even) noble religionists have had good ideas that have helped the natural progress of the world. From an earthly perspective, I am grateful for their motivations and their contributions. However, consider that they could have had their ideas sanctified by God, had they consecrated themselves to Him. (Only Heaven will reveal how the world could have been improved by that notion.) God may use a man’s natural talents to benefit people, but—and this will sting—without the righteous, eternal involvement of Holy Jesus, those contributions do not merit him in the eternal sense. For the unredeemed contributor, his eternal merit for his “good works” in those contributions, compared to Holy Jesus, are—and this will sting more—as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), even “evil deeds” (Luke 13:27), all because the contributors do not know Christ and do not have their deeds sanctified. This all seems foolish to the mind untransformed by Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14). Looking horizontally—that is, comparing things on the earthly plane—we refuse to accept all of this. Looking vertically—that is, comparing things to a holy, Heavenly standard—we can see at what Lewis was getting when he said that so much of man’s natural ideas are “thoughts busily working in a vacuum.”
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 17:56:07 +0000
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