Mere Christianity

I've just finished reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity! It is such a good book, one of the best I've read so far. The thing about this book is how much it challenges the mind to believe in God.

Not sure if it is just the influence of this book, but perhaps also because of other materials I've been reading, I think that the salvation experience is very sacred. It is not immediate, but God is working within the lives of every individual. Hence the act of bringing an individual to church is not the matter that deserves rejoicing - though it can be the start of the journey, but rather we pray that God will work deeply within the life of that individual. I think God touches us in different ways, apart from visits to church, but He can speak to us through events, situations and people, soften our hearts to hear Him.

I liked this paragraph written by C.S. Lewis. I think it makes a lot of sense. And perhaps...closer to my idea of what God is doing within our lives.

"In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgements about Christians and non- Christians in the mass."