“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48

“When I was a child I often had toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother-at least, not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this. I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie; if you gave them an inch they took an ell. 

Now, if I may put it that way, Our Lord is like the dentists. If you give Him an inch, He will take an ell. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of (like masturbation or physical cowardice) or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper or drunkenness). Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment.” (On Perfection; Counting the Cost, from  Mere Christianity — from Preparing For Easter; Fifty Devotional Readings from C.S. Lewis) 

If we understand what C.S. Lewis is getting at, we soon realize why some people do not want to seek out G-d for some relief from what “ails them”. Because, once G-d gets a foot in the door, soon the individual will not only sense some relief from his/her initial request, but they might even begin to feel more troubled – because there is more work to be done. And once the Holy Spirit finds a crack in the hard “outer nature”, then there is surely the chance that the blessed Spirit will seek “other” aches and pains. And then, as I see it, as I have experienced the Holy Spirit in my life, then all bets are off. The dentist will have been summoned…..

Pastor Dave

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³ and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. ²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷ And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8:22-27 

“If the Redemption of Man is the beginning of nature’s redemption as a whole, must we then conclude after all that Man is the most important thing in nature? If I had to answer ‘Yes’ to this question I should not be embarrassed. Supposing Man to be the only rational animal in the universe, then his small size and the small size of the globe he inhabits would not make it ridiculous to regard him as the hero of the cosmic drama: Jack after all is the smallest character in ‘Jack the Giant Killer’. Nor do I think it in the least improbable that Man is in fact the only rational creature in this spatio-temporal Nature. That is just the sort of lonely pre-eminence – just the disproportion between picture and frame – which all that I know of Nature’s ‘selectiveness’ would lead me to anticipate. Let Man be only one among a myriad of rational species, and let him be the only one that has fallen. Because he has fallen, for him God does the great deed; just as in the parable it is the one lost sheep for whom the shepherd hunts. Let Man’s pre-eminence or solitude be one not of superiority but of misery and evil; then all the more, Man will be the very species into which Mercy will descend.” (Embracing Glory; Miracles, The Grand Miracle, C.S.Lewis – from Preparing For Easter; Fifty Devotional Readings from C.S. Lewis) 

Because we are a fallen humanity, G-d has decided to redeem, not only humanity, but all of creation – but is not planning to restore creation to a status quo. As C.S. Lewis would go on to say, “Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been, more glorious than any unfallen race is now.” And in redeeming humanity, then the entire creation will be redeemed to something more glorious than it is now. This is why we must care for creation now – because we are not to be taken out or off of this earth, this earth is to be redeemed. As such, we are called to care for what G-d has created, and will redeem, beyond our wildest imagination.

Pastor Dave