Decreasing

You state the problem very clearly, and the fact that you can do so really shows that you are very much on the right road. Many don’t even get so far.

The whole problem of our life was neatly expressed by John the Baptist when he said (John, chap 3, v. 30) ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ This you have realised. But you are expecting it to happen suddenly: and also expecting that you should be clearly aware when it does. But neither of these is usual. We are doing well enough if the slow process of being more in Christ and less in ourselves has made a decent beginning in a long life (it will be completed only in the next world). Nor can we observe it happening. All our reports on ourselves are unbelievable, even in worldly matters (no one really hears his own voice as others do, or sees his own face). Much more in spiritual matters. God sees us, and we don’t see ourselves. And by trying too hard to do so, we only get the fidgets and become either too complacent or too much the other way.

Your question what to do is already answered. Go on (as you apparently are going on) doing all your duties. And, in all lawful ways, go on enjoying all that can be enjoyed—your friends, your music, your books. Remember we are told to ‘rejoice’ [Philippians 4:4]. Sometimes when you are wondering what God wants you to do, He really wants to give you something.

As to your spiritual state, try my plan. I pray ‘Lord, show me just so much (neither more nor less) about myself as I need for doing thy will now.’

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack

Entailments

In quite a lot of Western evangelicalism, there is a worrying tendency to focus on the periphery. I have a colleague in the Missions Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School whose analysis of his own heritage is very helpful. Dr Paul Hiebert laboured for years in India before returning to the United States to teach. He springs from Mennonite stock, and analyses his heritage in a fashion that he himself would acknowledge is something of a simplistic caricature, but a useful one nonetheless. One generation of Mennonites believed the gospel, and held as well that there were certain social, economic, and political entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel, but identified with the entailments. The following generation denied the gospel: the entailments were everything.

Assuming this sort of scheme for evangelicalism, one suspects that large swathes of the movement are lodged in the second step, with some drifting toward the third.

What we must ask one another is this: what is it in the Christian faith that makes you excited? What consumes your time? What turns you on? Today there are endless subgroups of confessing Christians who invest enormous quantities of time and energy in one issue or another: abortion, home schooling, the defence of a particular Bible version, pornography issues, women’s ordination (for or against), economic injustice, a certain style of worship, and much more. The list varies from country to country, but not a few countries have a full agenda of urgent, peripheral demands. Not for a moment am I suggesting we should not think about such matters and throw our weight behind none of them. But when such matters devour most of our time and passion, each of us must ask, in what fashion am I confessing the centrality of the gospel?

D A Carson in Basics for Believers (reflections on Philippians) pages 26-7