Helpful Score: 1
This book was such an encouragement! The focus of this book is on knowing Jesus for who He really is, and enjoying him above all else. This isn't a book to read in an afternoon--it's one to be read a chapter at a time so you are able to really savor the deep truths each chapter contains.
I couldn't get very far in this book. The author seemed to lean heavily on the "this is all about God's glory, not about you (you worm)" aspect of grace.
Don't get me wrong. God is God and people are people. There should be no confusion about who is divine. But my personal struggle is not "Who's in charge, God or me?" or "Who's more important, God or me?" It's "Does God love me? Do I matter to him?"
To quote a fragment of the book:
We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self. Indeed, what could be more ludicrous in a vast and glorious universe like this than a human being, on the speck called earth, standing in front of a mirror trying to find significance in his own self-image? It is a great sadness that this is the gospel of the modern world.
But it is not the Christian Gospel. Into the darkness of petty self-preoccupation has shone "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Christian Gospel is about "the glory of Christ," not about me. And when it is--in some measure--about me, it is not about my being made much of by God, but about God mercifully enabling me to enjoy making much of him forever. (pgs 15-16)
(endquote)
I already struggle with a constant feeling that I'm not very special to God, that I don't matter much and therefore what I do doesn't matter much and therefore it doesn't much matter what I do. Being told (or perceiving that I'm being told) that God is like a powerful executive who constantly reminds his wife, "I only married you to make myself look good" does not help me. It does not help me love God. It does not help me trust and obey Him.
C.S. Lewis says at the end of Mere Christianity, on the tail of a long discussion which fully deserves to be read carefully more than once,
It is something like that with Christ and us. The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of 'little Christs', all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented -- as an author invents characters in a novel -- all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to 'be myself' without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call 'Myself' becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call 'My wishes' become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men's thoughts or even suggested to me by devils...
...I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call 'me' can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own...
...Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self... As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him... Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it... Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
(endquote)
I'm sorry it's so long, even with omissions. It's not a simple subject. But I believe Lewis's words more fully reflect the "admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies" that Piper himself refers to.
God himself says that he longs for us. "So the King will greatly desire your beauty; because he is your Lord, worship Him." (Psalm 45:11) And also "The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven with gold." (Psalm 45:13) See also the Song of Solomon and Ephesians 3:14, "...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)
These verses don't sound like "You are dirt, but I'm condescending to you anyway" to me. They sound like "You are my precious child, for whom I have sought and for whom I suffered so much, because you meant so much to me."
Perhaps I am hypersensitive to these attitudes because of my aforementioned struggles. Perhaps I am not being fair to the book. All I know is that I find the writings of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton and C.H. Spurgeon much more shocking, uplifting, edifying, and encouraging than this volume.
Don't get me wrong. God is God and people are people. There should be no confusion about who is divine. But my personal struggle is not "Who's in charge, God or me?" or "Who's more important, God or me?" It's "Does God love me? Do I matter to him?"
To quote a fragment of the book:
We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self. Indeed, what could be more ludicrous in a vast and glorious universe like this than a human being, on the speck called earth, standing in front of a mirror trying to find significance in his own self-image? It is a great sadness that this is the gospel of the modern world.
But it is not the Christian Gospel. Into the darkness of petty self-preoccupation has shone "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Christian Gospel is about "the glory of Christ," not about me. And when it is--in some measure--about me, it is not about my being made much of by God, but about God mercifully enabling me to enjoy making much of him forever. (pgs 15-16)
(endquote)
I already struggle with a constant feeling that I'm not very special to God, that I don't matter much and therefore what I do doesn't matter much and therefore it doesn't much matter what I do. Being told (or perceiving that I'm being told) that God is like a powerful executive who constantly reminds his wife, "I only married you to make myself look good" does not help me. It does not help me love God. It does not help me trust and obey Him.
C.S. Lewis says at the end of Mere Christianity, on the tail of a long discussion which fully deserves to be read carefully more than once,
It is something like that with Christ and us. The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of 'little Christs', all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented -- as an author invents characters in a novel -- all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to 'be myself' without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call 'Myself' becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call 'My wishes' become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men's thoughts or even suggested to me by devils...
...I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call 'me' can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own...
...Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self... As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him... Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it... Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
(endquote)
I'm sorry it's so long, even with omissions. It's not a simple subject. But I believe Lewis's words more fully reflect the "admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies" that Piper himself refers to.
God himself says that he longs for us. "So the King will greatly desire your beauty; because he is your Lord, worship Him." (Psalm 45:11) And also "The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven with gold." (Psalm 45:13) See also the Song of Solomon and Ephesians 3:14, "...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)
These verses don't sound like "You are dirt, but I'm condescending to you anyway" to me. They sound like "You are my precious child, for whom I have sought and for whom I suffered so much, because you meant so much to me."
Perhaps I am hypersensitive to these attitudes because of my aforementioned struggles. Perhaps I am not being fair to the book. All I know is that I find the writings of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton and C.H. Spurgeon much more shocking, uplifting, edifying, and encouraging than this volume.
