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CS Lewis 1/8: Glimpses of Goodness (MC)


At first the Christian life seems all about rules and duty and guilt, but eventually it will lead us somewhere new. We can't quite see the new place from here, but it's a place where no one worries about rules or duty or guilt, because they're all perfectly and completely good. They don't call it goodness, though. In fact they don't call it anything; they're too busy looking at the source of that goodness. We sometimes get a tiny glimpse of that place here on Earth, but it's beyond us, waiting for us, just over that heavenly ridge.


Study Questions:

1) Think back to when you first started following Jesus. Were you ever overwhelmed by all the things you were supposed to do, or not do? If so, what kept you going?

2) Do you ever think about heaven, or about receiving a heavenly reward? If so, what part of that do you look forward to the most?

Suggested Reading: Hebrews 12:1-11

*****

Original Text: "Something Beyond"

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at the first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes. But this is near the stage where the road passes over the rim of our world. No one's eyes can see very far beyond that: lots of people's eyes can see further than mine.

- Mere Christianity

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