Scripture
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
~Matthew 22:37-39, NLT
Quote
In Christianity, the individual is incomparably more important than the state. The Christian lives forever, the life of the state, compared with his is only a moment.
~C.S. Lewis
Jesus boiled the law down to two things: loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as much as you love yourself which in my case is a lot. The longer I live, the more I see the importance of these two commands. If you get these two things down to pat, you will most definitely hear a well done thou good and faithful servant. Now regarding the second: loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself, C.S. Lewis has devoted an entire chapter in Mere Christianity. He mentions the three parts of morality and he uses two analogies: first a band and then a fleet of ships. Every member of the band can have a tuned instrument but unless they are on the same page and playing the same song–all you have is noise. But I will devote the remainder of this blog to the analogy of the fleet.
When a fleet sets sail, three things are very important. The first has regard to others. Each individual ship must be careful not to collide with the ship to their right or left. So rule number one is don’t damage the ship that is beside you. Rule number two will prevent you from breaking rule number one: each ship must follow its course. You don’t focus on the direction of the other ships but carefully follow your assigned course. The third rule is to respect the owner of the fleet and the purpose of the voyage. In other words, no rouge ships doing their own thing. How does this translate into life?
First, we must have regard for others, maintaining every intention not to hurt or damage them. Secondly, we have to keep a tidy ship ourselves. We must exercise spiritual disciplines. Our intent must be to stay on course and follow the LORD’s instruction. We must keep the heart right with God. The third thing is to remember, we belong to HIM. The ship we guide is HIS, the fleet is HIS. We are on HIS mission to accomplish HIS purpose. As Hailey sang so beautifully last Sunday, it is HIS breath in our lungs. So there is our relationship with our neighbor, our heart and our LORD. Dismiss the thought that a thing cannot be wrong unless it hurts someone else {causes a collision}, every sin is against the owner of the fleet and in time will have social consequences.
LORD willing, we are on our way to Lebanon for a Christmas Festival. Originally, we were going back to Mount Airy, NC but we changed it from a three day trip to a one day trip. Big Mama and I are going with Hannah and the girls.
I watched 13 Hours on VidAngel last night. I experienced some righteous indignation; Hillary should go to prison for letting those people die and so should Obama. I am amazed at what crooked politicians get away with. I am thinking about the R. G. Lee quote…Payday someday, it is written in the fabric of the universe.
I didn’t comment when it happened but Gayle Sayers passed away last week at the age of 77. I have seen two professional football games in my life and one was the NY Jets and Joe Willie verses the Chicago Bears and Sayers. He had Barry Sanders type moves and was as illusive as Walter Patton. It seems like he could cut in mid-air. He roomed and played along side Brian Piccolo who died with cancer at age 26. There is a movie about the two called Brian’s Song.