How Much of Myself Must I Give?

I was reading an excerpt from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity this week and that same question was poised by him in the book.  It sort of stopped me cold when I realized that I didn't actually know the answer.  Better put - not sure I was living the answer.

Lewis goes on to explain the answer to this question by reminding us that the way we typically think is that as long as I'm being "good" and not "bad" or doing "bad", then all the demands for the Christian life have been met.  This stance however leaves the old natural man still as the main ingredient and hopefully he will still have some chance, to get on with life and do what he likes!

In other words - - if we answer the above question with our natural self as the starting point, we haven't answered the question correctly.

The Christian life and Christian way is much different: it is both harder and easier.  Christ says, "Give me All."  Lewis explains it this way, with God saying, "I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money, and so much of your work:  I want You.  I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it.  No half-measures will do."

In other words - we're required to hand over the WHOLE natural self, all the desires you think are innocent as well as the ones you know are wicked - the whole package.  Then He gives you a new self.  In fact, He gives you Himself.

That's both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do.  Harder, because Christ said, "Take up your cross" - in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp.  The next minute he says, "My yoke is easy and my burden light."

I think he says both because he means both.  The contrast between God's way of doing things and our way is never more acute than in the area of human change and transformation.  We focus on specific actions: God focuses on us.  We work from the outside in; God works from the inside out. We try; God transforms.

When I read this excerpt from Lewis at the beginning of the year, it brought me to my knee's, and I could hardly finish it.  I suddenly knew what was wrong: I had been using my "natural self" as the starting point.  I had been trying to keep my self and its desires intact.  Christ was merely an addition to my self.  After reading this passage, I have resolved to live this year consciously listening to the voice of Christ and letting the new self - the one that Christ gives me - to come to life.

My prayer is that God will do the same for you that he wants to do for me!