C.S. Lewis: Gift-love

“Finally, by a high paradox, God enables men to have a gift-love towards Himself. There is of course a sense in which no one can give to God anything which is not already His; and if it is already His, what have you given? But since it is only too obvious that we can withhold ourselves, our wills and hearts, from God, we can, in that sense, also give them. What is His by right and would not exist for a moment if it ceased to be His (as the song is the singer’s), He has nevertheless made ours in such a way that we can freely offer it back to Him. “Our wills are ours to make them Thine.” And as all Christians know there is another way of giving to God; every stranger whom we feed or clothe is Christ.”
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in Four Loves: An Exploration of the Nature of Love (New York: Harcourt, 1960) 128-129.

I am most thankful for the love of God. I have come to learn about this love, from my Lord Jesus and from the love of my life, Jenni, who teaches me about God’s love as she explores the depths of it daily and shares it freely.

In gratitude, I gift-love myself back to Him anew and afresh today. Would you join me? Even as He loved us when we were unlovable, He directs us to love the unlovable, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). It’s precisely how we are to love Him.

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