I want to affirm the main point of the last post, and even the reasons that Lewis is making. God is looking for character, not simply acts. We are in Jesus to be like Jesus, not to slavishly imitate particular acts of Jesus. It wouldn’t necessarily be loving to spit on the ground, make mud and put it in someone’s eyes, even if they were blind. It was loving for Jesus to do that in his context, but we should be healing the blind and poor in a different way today. And we need to recognize that character is important because is speaks of the nature of a person, not the outward appearance. And God is forming a people, a kingdom that will be full of certain kinds of people. Not just people who know how to say the right words when in church, but people who will, out of church, make a habit of acting in a certain manner.
However, I have a couple caveats to Lewis’ important statement in the last post.
a. When we are first being trained in virtue, we will, almost without exception, be acting out of obedience for all the wrong reasons, and we will be doing the action itself all wrong because of that. However, this is not cause not to begin the process of acting out the virtue. We all have to start somewhere to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” and a misstep in the right direction is better than no step at all. This is important for people in recovery (and we are ALL in recovery from something) to remember. We’ve got to start walking that road and be ready to be corrected as we do that walk.
b. I think that there will be the need for courageous and just actions in the future. There is a universe to explore and to bring to God’s will. There are people, when Jesus first returns, to teach justice to, to train in the ways of love. There will still be discomforts to accept for the sake of need. There will still be sacrifices, although less than some of the sacrifices that people make here. This is all the more reason why God wants people whose character is justice, love, and sacrifice.
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