Week 4: The Screwtape Letters - Strengthening the Inner Man

"The characteristic of Pains and Pleasures is that they are unmistakably real, and therefore, as far as they go, give the man who feels them a touchstone of reality."  [Screwtape to Wormwood]

In Letter 13, we find the enjoyment of true pleasure has lead to a change of direction in the patient's life, as he turns away from the direction he had started to go with his new friends.  How often people settle for the glittering, but false pleasures of "vanity, bustle, irony and expensive tedium".  I don't think we realize how vulnerable we are to appeals to our vanity.  "Even in things indifferent it is always desirable to substitute the standards of the World, or convention, or fashion, for a human's own real likings and disliking," advises Screwtape.  Of course, our ultimate pleasure is found in God, yet sadly, how often we're willing to settle for things less satisfying.

We see additional evidence of advancement in the patient's walk in Letter 14.  He has abandoned broad vows of commitment, "lavish promises of perpetual virtue", in favor of daily reliance upon and obedience to God, "daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation".  Wormwood's young man has taken his first steps down the road to humility.  Screwtape suggests two possible courses: either inspire him to have "pride at his own humility" or encourage him to become so introspective about it that he begins to foster self-contempt, which can then "be made the starting point for contempt of other selves, and thus for gloom, cynicism, and cruelty".

Key to developing a proper sense of humility is coming to the realization that we did not create ourselves. Our talents, our abilities and our spiritual gifts were all given to us by God, so how is it possible to be either prideful or dismissive about them?  They were given for a purpose ... that we might love our Creator and glorify Him in all we do.  Which leads me to a rather awkward question:  taking all of that as a "given", how then do we encourage one another in ministry?  Our tendency, I fear, is to praise the gift, the talent, the ability rather than how that gift, talent or ability resulted in our having a better understanding of God and His purposes and motivated us to act accordingly.  We focus on the tool rather than on the Master Craftsman using it.  Personally, I would be encouraged much more if, as a result of my teaching, you said to me, "Now I understand this about God ...." and you began to trust Him more, or if you said, "Now I have a better understanding that God expects me to ...." and you started doing the work of the ministry, than if you told me, "I love how you teach". While I work very hard at trying to teach well, the teaching is only a means to an end.  It's the results that really matter!  Does it result in you knowing God and His word better?  Does it result in you living a life that glorifies Him?  Does it result in you falling in love with Jesus Christ?  THAT would be a true encouragement!

"Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind." [Screwtape to Wormwood]

Letter 15 deals with where we tend to place our trust - in what we think we see, in what we hope will happen or in God's governing hand.  As creatures of time, how easily our understanding of events can become skewed.  Since we can't possibly know what tomorrow holds, God desires men would be "continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present - either meditating on [their] eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure."

"[God's] ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity ... washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.  But [Satan & his minions] want a man hag-ridden by the future - haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth - ready to break [God's] commands in the present if by so doing [it] makes him think he can attain the one or avert the other - dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see ... a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now ..."

While Scripture does not suggest we never plan for the future, we are instructed to do so in light of the knowledge that God is sovereign.  Reflecting upon my own life prior to salvation, it's easy to see how my hopes for happiness and fulfillment were always pinned upon the future.  "I'll be happy ... when I graduate from college ... when I get a job in my field ... when I get married ... when we own a home ... when we have children."  It's important I don't allow that way of thinking to follow me into my Christian life!  I need to check myself and redirect my thoughts whenever I catch myself thinking, "I'll be happy ... when I have financial security ... when my son is in full-time ministry again ... when my friend's cancer is under control ... when everyone in my church loves the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind."  Instead, I need to be asking myself, "Am I  ... walking in obedience  today?  ... being thankful today?  ... communicating with God today?  ... serving God today?  ... loving others today?  ... using my God-given spiritual gifts and talents today?  ... trusting God today?  ... glorifying God today?

Finally, Letter 16 addresses commitment to a local assembly of believers.  This is probably the one area our attitudes are more heavily impacted by our culture than they are by biblical truth and early church practice.  Oftentimes we're not even aware of it.  We don't live in a culture of commitment.  We don't tend to think corporately.  Instead, we tend to see ourselves as the Masters of our Fate.  Invictus is not a Christian poem!

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed...

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I often point out the pronoun "you" in the NT is almost always plural, a corporate "you" written to a local body of believers, not a singular, individualistic "you"!  God has chosen to work through local assemblies in this age and He gifts people according to the needs of that assembly.  His intent is that they would all work together as one body of believers in one assembly, committed to one another and to the work of God. [1 Cor. 12:11-12]  Screwtape writes to Wormwood, "Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that 'suits' him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches ... the search for a 'suitable' church makes the man a critic where [God] wants him to be a pupil."

And over each local body of forgiven sinners, God places pastor-teachers/elders, whom He gives the task of training up the members through the preaching of God's word, in order that those members are able to do the work of the ministry. [Eph. 4:11-12]  On their part, local church members are commanded to, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.  Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you." [Hebrews 13:17]  The Greek word for "submit" is a descriptive one.  It means "to yield", literally "to place yourself under."  It's related to the verb "be subject" used several times in Eph. 5:21-24, where wives are commanded to place themselves "in submission" to their husbands.  Now that's not natural to our "flesh", nor is it natural in our culture!  God is making a call for full-fledged commitment, because we trust God knows what He is doing!  How often we view things with merely human eyes.  But acting on our purely human view does not lead us into a good place with God.  Numbers 12 should serve as a warning to us!

"What [God] wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise - does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment."

[Week #1; Week #5]