Love or Duty? or Both?

Say hello to a couple of cute and cuddly capivaras. Today's post consists of a few loosely organized, Facebook style sentences. 

CS Lewis penned a classic, "The Screwtape Letters" which has a passage in it that treats a subject I have been thinking about lately. I can't remember if Wormood is writing the letters or receiving them but in the book, one is taught to seduce humans to keep from following Christ. One of the thing he says was referenced on a podcast I heard today. It also happens to be a subject that Denielle and I have been thinking about, discussing, researching and evaluating in our own lives. In the book one of them writes to the other, "Work on their horror of the same old thing. The horror of the same old thing is the greatest passion we have put in their hearts. People get tired of the same old routine and if we can use that we will derail them. Substitute for faith something else . . . make it Christianity and . . . substitute for the faith some fashion with a Christian coloring . . ." He goes on: "Pick out the pleasure of eating and exaggerate it to the power of gluttony. They love change so twist it into a demand for absolute novelty. What will happen to it then is this, it will diminish pleasure while increasing desire. The greatest triumph we will have is to elevate the horror of the same old thing into a philosophy so that nonsense in the intellect may reinforce corruption of the will." I confess that I have wasted a lot of time in my life because I have elevated the horror of the same old thing into an excuse to pursue nonsense.


We had a great week at conference and enjoyed being with our mission family in the northeastern sun for a week. We are really grateful for the chance to spend time with our missionary family and rest, be fed, and eat beans, rice, greasy noodles and flies. ElliAnna got her first good mk experience and managed to loose some of her Portuguese in the process. She also contracted her first ever non tooth related sickness.

2 Peter 3 is a tremendously powerful missionary chapter. It provides motivation for a non believer to seriously consider the claims of Christ. "The Lord is not willing that any should perish." It provides an urgency those who walk in the light to shine brightly. "Be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless." It provides confidence in light of the scoffers who claim that God has grown disinterested in or never cared about His creation. "One day is as a thousand years." It oozes grace for what else could motivate justice, holiness, righteousness, and majesty to be long-suffering? "And consider that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation."

As always, thanks for reading and God bless.