I enjoy reading C.S. Lewis. He was a very smart man and a deep thinker. Early in life he was an avowed atheist but became a devoted follower of Jesus and a prolific writer who attempted answering a variety of Christian questions. I particularly enjoyed hearing his take on what we should consider the highest of virtues.
He wrote:
If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self- denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Lewis observed the Stoics definition of the goal in life as living in agreement with nature. They believed life should be free of passions as defined in the Bible and in particular to the love for us of Christ and that rational understanding and the fulfillment of all one’s personal, social, professional, and civic responsibilities was sufficient for happiness.
Ugh . . . How misinformed they were; they should have opened their Bibles and read them. We cannot remain happy apart from Christ. Christians should passionately anticipate the everlasting enjoyment of the rewards offered by Jesus. He loves us and wants to demonstrate that love forever. It is the hope we as followers of Christ live for. Unashamedly look to the rewards your Creator lovingly wants to lavish upon you both in this life and the hereafter. Don’t focus on what you can glean from this vapor of a life on this planet. Focus on Jesus the epitome of love personified and His promises to those who also love Him. The things of the world will soon be gone, and their temporary pleasures will disappear with them . . . Love endures forever. I don’t want a mud pie in the slums when I’m offered a seaside vacation and a key lime pie with my Lord and Savior.
1 Corinthians 2:9
However, as it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived — the things God has prepared for those who love him.