Ploughed up and Re-sown

"Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown." 

-C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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For the record, this is one of my favorite books - Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. It's definitely a must read!

I love this quote! It's so true! When you decide to accept Christ's offer of salvation, it's not as easy as it sounds. Well, it is and it isn't. It is easy in the way that Christ has already done everything, all you've got to do is let Him come in. It isn't easy in the way that it's going to flip your life around if you allow it, and it's going to make your life harder in the eyes of the world, but oh so much better in the eyes of those who know Him!

But it isn't just...you know, saying a little prayer, asking Jesus in your heart, and all that milky stuff that many of us in the U.S. are taught today. It's a decision. The biggest decision of your life - and it matters for ETERNITY.

And, as I learned just recently from a Bible teacher named Michael Pearl, this life, this present physical life that we have been given on this earth, is the one and only opportunity we have for building our character. After we're physically dead that's it for the character building process. Up in heaven we'll be far to busy worshiping God around His throne to have any time for character building exercises, if it were even possible. 

So it's here and now that you've gotta live "the hard life" as it were. It may be harder than anything else, but it's going to be SO worth it in the long run. 

Cutting the grass just keeps it short. That's it. You aren't going to change the your grass crop into a wheat crop by cutting the grass shorter. It doesn't work that way. 

In the same way, you can't produce a crop of good works and good character if you are just cutting back on your bad works and bad character.

It's 180 degree turn.

You've gotta dig up all that grass and keep it out of there. One little blade allowed to live can multiply and destroy your whole new crop of wheat. 

The older I get, the more I see that being a Christian is an all-or-nothing deal. It's an all-or-nothing deal because that's exactly what Christ requires of His children - all-or-nothing.

In Christ our Deliverer,

Buttercup