Thursday, 21 March 2013

Day 32: Recap of the reason...

To help us remember what it is that we are doing here with Love 40 days, here is a quote from C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses:

If you asked 20 good [persons] today what they thought the highest of the virtues, 19 of them would reply, Unselfishness.  But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old [they] would have replied, Love.  You see what has happened?  A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance.  The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.  I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love.  The New Testament has a lot to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.

We are drawing towards the end of Lent now - on the final stretch - and hopefully the opportunity to practice loving one another has helped us draw closer to God in a new way.  Lent is traditionally the remembrance of Jesus spending forty days in the wilderness, fasting, praying and withstanding temptation.  It is all about sacrifice.  Love 40 days will have been a sacrifice for you in some way - the sacrifice of freedom, of putting yourself first, of giving time to pray and read this blog!  But you are also seeking to put something of Jesus in where you are seeking to put something of yourself out...

We have spent a great deal of time over the past weeks thinking about what Lewis terms the Christian virtue of Love - try to spend time today praying about whatever it is that God is speaking to you about from Lewis's challenge.

For the kids:
Spend time talking together about the difference between "not being selfish" and "being loving" - what extra things does "being loving" include?  If you looked at 1 Corinthians 13 together on Day 1, see if the children can remember anything from the list of words and then revisit the post and see which qualities you have forgotten.  Pray together that God would continue to help you learn to love as He loves.

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