June 13 2018 – Click here to listen
C.S. Lewis was a brilliant man. One of my favorite quotes of his came from his book, Mere Christianity: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”
One of my new neighbors convinced me to give him a copy of my book, Miracle on Luckie Street. Now that he is reading it every time he sees me he jokingly asks: “What’s wrong with you?”
This comes from the book when I related that when I was a young man, this was a common question asked by authority figures including my parents, teachers, the police, and military commanders whenever I did something bad.
My mother in fact once called a family meeting to ascertain once and for all what was wrong with me after I’d done something particularly bad. My mother, father, brother and I all assembled at the dining room table for a meeting. At the time I was about 16 years old.
My mother sternly looked at me and said she just couldn’t understand what was wrong with me and why I was always in trouble.
She directly asked me about it and I told her that I didn’t have a clue.
My dad looked disgusted, mad, and frustrated when he was asked if he might know, he just lowered his head and sadly shook it indicating he didn’t know.
Finally, it came around to my brother. He turned and looked me up and down very slowly as he pondered it. All eyes were on him when he finally turned to my mother and nonchalantly said, “I dunno, bad seed I guess.”
Up until he made that remark the meeting had been somber and dreadful, but suddenly the room exploded in laughter. It was pure genius.
They are all gone now and I’m the last one standing in our little family, but that meeting, and Jim’s careful analysis, have stuck with me all these years.
After I accepted Christ as my Savior I thought my problems were over, but alas, I still did and do bad things on occasion and it makes me mad and frustrated every time I do so. I am reminded of the Apostle Paul who voiced his frustration in Romans 7:19 – I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do.
I guess the genius C.S. Lewis nailed it with his quote – “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”
How bad are we? According to God not one person is good according to His Holy standards. To be good as God defines it, one must never commit even one sin. That’s impossible since we are in fact, bad seeds, because sin is in all of humankind’s genes and DNA, passed down through the millennia through Adam and Eve.
That is precisely why He sent Jesus to transform our spirits to His sinless Spirit. We who follow Him have been forgiven because of Him; certainly not because of anything that we have done.
So, the next step should logically be to forgive ourselves. We should not unduly dwell on our mistakes of the past and look to the bright future. If you have trouble forgiving yourself as I sometimes do, this saying by C.S. Lewis should put it in better perspective for you. “If God forgives us we must forgive ourselves otherwise its like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him.”
I try to lead a righteous life. When I fail miserably I genuinely ask for forgiveness and God forgives me. Admittedly I sometimes dwell on the mistake and it only serves to hinder me from moving forward with trying to glorify God with the remainder of my life.
I try harder the next time and that helps, but deep down I know that sooner or later I’ll make another mistake and have to go back to God in humble contriteness and ask for forgiveness again. Ugh! I hate it when I disappoint God and I dread having to go to Him and admit that once again I’ve let him down.
So did Paul, but the Lord gave him the verses below and it helps me to read it. Hopefully those of you who struggle like me and the Apostle Paul will find some peace from it. It’s the best gene therapy remedy that I’ve found.
Romans 7:22
So this is the principle I have discovered: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s Law. But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.