C.S. Lewis Institute Seattle

Having died, risen and ascended to the Father, Jesus has removed every obstacle to our full reconciliation with God.
He has also sent the promised Holy Spirit to impart all the benefits available to us as children of God (forgiveness, empowerment, filling with the Spirit, fruits and gifts of the Spirit, etc.). Through faith in Christ, we can experience all these benefits.

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13b-14

Christians are called to respond to Jesus by putting our faith in him and surrendering ourselves to his priorities. This life of costly discipleship is characterized by love for God and neighbor. This is the path every believer in the triune God of the Bible is called to follow.

“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2 Corinthians 4:16,17 (NIV)

In “Deserted by God,” Sinclair Ferguson tells the story of English missionary, Allen Gardiner. In January 1852, a search party found Gardiner’s lifeless body. He and his companions had shipwrecked on Tierra del Fuego. Their provisions had run out. They had starved to death.

Gardiner, at one point, felt desperate for water; his pangs of thirst, he wrote, were “almost intolerable.” Far from home and loved ones, he died alone, isolated, weakened, and physically broken.

Isn’t this one of those stories told to raise the problem of evil and suffering? Indeed, if the story ended like this, we would find it tragic beyond description.

Despite the wretched conditions of his death, Gardiner wrote out Scripture passages, including Psalm 34:10: *“The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing” *(KJV).

Near death, his handwriting feeble, Gardiner managed to write one final entry into his journal:

“I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God.”

Gardner knew firsthand the sweet paradox that suffering and hardships are necessary if we are to truly know the love of God. In both our personal sufferings as well as those we share with others, we see His face and are overwhelmed by the glory of His goodness. In suffering, our abstract concepts of God instead become driven into our hearts by love and grace.

Grace & Peace,

Brian

When you think back to life before your response to the gospel, your repentance of sin and living life according to your own ways and placing trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, do you now recognize the ways in which the Holy Spirit was actively working within you even before you became aware of his presence?

Have you ever wished for a thirty-hour day? Six extra hours a day over the next year would certainly help us catch up in accomplishing all the unfinished items on our to-do lists, wouldn’t they?

Perhaps the problem isn’t lack of time, but one which requires a reordering of one’s priorities — not letting the urgent continue to crowd out the important.

Is there any escape in from this pattern of living under the tyranny of the urgent? Let’s look at the life of Jesus Christ, who despite his short three-year ministry, on the night before he was crucified, could pray these words to God the Father: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”

A few weeks ago, all across the country, men and women received a certificate that looked a lot like this one. This piece of paper is a small token representing the culmination of a transformative yearlong dedication toward becoming wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who will articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in their personal and public lives.

The Fellows program focuses on discipleship of both heart and mind. It involves many hours of Bible Study, dozens upon dozens of classic readings, monthly lectures, group processing, personal spiritual mentoring and accountability – all in the context of listening and sharing among a small group of Christ-oriented believers.

Each year in June, those experiences and this certificate mark the end of the beginning for an outgoing Fellows class. As the 2024 - 2025 Fellows embark on this next leg of their discipleship journey after this year of preparation, the 2025 - 2026 Fellows are just beginning that same transformational journey.

Would you pray for those Fellows, incoming and outgoing, that their impacts on one another, their churches, and the world bring glory to God? And if you are not yet involved with the CS Lewis Institute, would you pray about your own journey as a wholehearted disciple of Jesus Christ and a future as 2026-2027 Fellow?

from his book “Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People’s Hearts the Way Jesus Did,” just one of many thought-provoking books one can read in the CSLI Fellows program.

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6

We look forward to seeing you there on Saturday!