In this chapter, Counting the Cost, Lewis looks at the “process” of Christianity – the dying to self and being made new. For many, this is an unnerving idea. We hold so tightly to the self – our “identity” – that we can’t imagine something different, something more than what we are now. But what is the cost of Christianity? I am not talking about the Joel Olsteen approach to Christianity. I am talking about the difficulties of life – the hardship brought into this world by sin and the process through which the Lord is redeeming not only His children but all of creation.

On a very personal level, we call this sanctification. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines sanctification as “the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” At times, in fact more than we care to admit, this renewal carries tremendous pain. It means abandoning those things that once brought us tremendous joy and comfort, friends in whom we once confided, and outings to which we looked forward on a regular basis.

One of the best words to describe this process is “surrender”. Surrender says I have enough trying on my own; my own way results in failure over and over. That is not a word with which many are fond, but it is accurate to the picture of Christianity. Surrender means obedience. Lewis puts it this way: “We may be content to remain what we call ‘ordinary people’: but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience” (175).

No where in Scripture is Christianity described as easy. No where does it say that one will find complete happiness in this world. No where does it say that this world is our eternal home. And no where do it say this is the best we are. The Bible clearly portrays a life that requires much of us knowing that we cannot accomplish a hint of it without the shed blood of Christ and the power of His Spirit within us. It looks forward to a world greater and more beautiful than this one. We may suffer now, but God promises that it will not last forever!

I want to leave you with this quote: “The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said” (176).

Questions:
*Is there a specific area with which you wrestle in your own life?
*How has the Lord worked in your life up to this point? Can you speak to tangible changes? Can you put words to a changed heart?
*Do you allow others to speak into your life and come along side you?
*Is change something you embrace as part of the Christian life?
*Are you creative in news ways to see God’s redeeming work in your life?

In this chapter, Lewis asks an important and challenging question: “Is Christianity hard or easy?” From the outset, you must know that this is not an easy question to answer. I remember wrestling with this question myself even after becoming a Christian. I remember asking myself, “What do I have to give up to follow Christ? What will my life be like?” In other words, I was asking how restricted my life would be to “lay everything at the cross.”

Lewis is raising several important points. First, the natural man has a profound impact on how we see ourselves, the world around us, and the significance of the Gospel. What is the “natural man”? The natural man is the person bound by only self-imposition or cultural “norms”. Although we have a hint of what is right and wrong (the law of morality – c.f. chapter one), we actively avoid it. Imagine a place where man lived in absolute “freedom” from societal standards. There are no laws to obey and no one “passing judgement”. Turn on the television, look at the Twitter feed, or turn to your favorite news broadcaster. What do you see?

There is something about the natural man that works against the greater good of the world. But what makes Christianity different? Don’t many religions call people to deny themselves? Yes, other religions call for self-denial, but Christianity wants more – Christ wants all of you.

The problem is, as Lewis states, that we start with the natural man. When we do, everything we think and do is framed in that light. Lewis puts it this way: “But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes” (168). With this mentality, any call to say “No” to one’s self feels burdensome. Even if it feels doable, we may subconsciously tell ourselves “I can do this for a time” while secretly holding on to the hope that someday all of those deep desires and longings will be fulfilled. But imagine Christ calling you to die to the self?!

What makes Christianity different is not the self-denial but what is replaced with the self.

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me ALL. 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 are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours” (169).

This is a radical departure from the teachings of other religions and philosophies. This is about your very personhood – your very personal, intimate being.

Why does this sound contrary to anything we have known? Why does this seem like the most difficult thing imaginable? Why is my natural response to say “No way!”? Why do I look this statement, and think, “Lewis was brilliant, but I think he lost his mind for a second.” I think Lewis summarizes the natural man’s mentality well. He says, “For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call ‘ourselves,’ to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be ‘good’ (170).

The natural man wants to retain those things which he/she make think is “defining” – those things which speak to who I am. But Christ says that all must die in order to have life in abundance. Does this sound outrageous and foreign? It did to me years ago, and at times, it still does. Dying to self is still a process, as it is for all who call upon the name of Christ.

In the chapter, Let’s Pretend, Lewis is looking deeper at the Christian life and what it looks like when we apply our theology – what happens when our lives are changed through the Gospel. If you remember, Lewis has talked about pretending in the chapter on Charity; he says, “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did” (116). In a sense, we are pretending to love our neighbour, only to discover that something very strange happens within us; we begin to love that person and see them in a new light. Lewis says that following Christ is much like that.

What Lewis really wants us to see in this chapter is that by proclaiming “Our Father” we are becoming like Christ, like the Son of God. We are being Christ-like in this world as He was when He was here. We are in no way replacing the Son of God with ourselves; that’s just insane jabber. Our very nature forbids us.

There is something about acting Christ-like that somehow makes us more Christ-like in our heart and nature. “It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much a God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has” (165). It is a turning, often gradual and even painful, from an old way, an old self to a new person – a new person unknown to us before and never obtainable by our own efforts.

As a result, we begin to see our true selves – our true nature, and it is alarming. We have no idea what despicable condition we were in, and when that odious nature creeped through the facade, we make excuses, tell lies, and blame others.

Essential to the Christian life is change, but it is not a change as we talk about it in our culture today. We most often think of change as it relates to boredom. My job is no longer fulfilling. I’m tired of the same scenery; I need to move. Even more personally, we could talk about things such as routines and if we’re being honest with ourselves, even behaviours. Lewis, however, is saying that the problem lies much deeper and much closer to our clinging hearts. Change, if it is true change, is a dying of self, but this only happens through the work of Christ in us and through us. “After the first few steps in the Christian life we realise that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God” (166).

Change is something everyone desires. We all want something different, something better, something more fulfilling, and more importantly something more lasting. We want something that captivates us and keeps us for longer than the things of this world. The problem is that many do not find that solution in the person of Christ, and they cannot until God decides it should be so. But when they do, when they see that the treacherous life in which they once lived is being made new with Something that provides for our every need, even in times of great pain and suffering, real life begins. Is this life easy or hard? Lewis looks at that question in the next chapter.

Questions:
*What in you daily life reveals that true nature as the rat did for Lewis?
*In what areas of the old self have undergone death?
*In what areas of the old self remain very much alive and rear there ugly heads at the worst times?