I call this a Divine Humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had. The same humility is shown by all those Divine appeals to our fears which trouble high-minded readers of Scripture. It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose Him as an alternative to Hell: yet even this He accepts. The creatures illusion to self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of eternal flames, God shatters it 'unmindful of his glory's diminution'. Those who would like the God of Scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask.

I call this a Divine Humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had. The same humility is shown by all those Divine appeals to our fears which trouble high-minded readers of Scripture. It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose Him as an alternative to Hell: yet even this He accepts. The creatures illusion to self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of eternal flames, God shatters it 'unmindful of his glory's diminution'. Those who would like the God of Scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask.

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote
Similar Quotes by cs-lewis

Of Course God does not consider you hopeless. If He did, He would not be moving you to seek Him (and He obviously is)... Continue seeking Him with seriousness. Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him.

C.S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

We still thought that we were the only two people in the world who were interested in the right kind of things in the right kind of way. C.S. Lewis

Philip Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
Save QuoteView Quote

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

Thought is what we start from: the simple, intimate, immediate datum. Matter is the inferred thing, the mystery.

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

Feelings come and go, and when they come a good use can be made of them, but they cannot be our regular spiritual diet.

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are "on" concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.

C.S. Lewis
Save QuoteView Quote

My purpose in beginning the John Wimber biography project was to honor his rich legacy of teaching, his extraordinary character, and the positive & beneficial impact his life has had on my journey as a 'follower of Christ'. I esteem John Wimber's teachings, writing, and impact upon the Body of Christ to be equal with that of C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, John F. Banks, D.L. Moody, and Leanne Payne.

R. Alan Woods, John Wimber: Naturally Supernatural
Save QuoteView Quote
Related Topics to cs-lewis Quotes