C.S. Lewis on Worship

This is a great quote from C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory) on worship being the preview of all the things that our hearts long for:

The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely from this point of view the promise of glory becomes highly relevant to our deepest desire. For glory means good [rapport] with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. . . . then our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy but the truest index of our real situation. . . . At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. . . . but all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

Is Faith a Consequence of Action?

Nathan Stam
Communications/Children's Pastor

Is faith a source of action? Or is it a consequence of action? Can it be both?

Check out this excerpt from David G. Meyers:

We are as likely to act ourselves into a way of thinking as to think ourselves into action. We are as likely to believe in what we have stood up for as to stand up for what we believe. Especially when we feel responsible for how we have acted, our attitudes follow our behavior. This self-persuasion enables all sorts of people--political campaigners, lovers, even terrorists--to believe more strongly in that which they have witnessed or suffered.

This realization--that inner attitude and outer behavior, like chicken and egg, generate one another--parallels a Judeo-Christian idea: inner faith and outer action likewise feed one another. Thus, faith is a source of action. Elijah is overwhelmed by the holy as he huddles in a cave. Paul is converted on the Damascus road. Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah undergo inner transformations. In each case, a new spiritual consciousness produces a new pattern of behavior.

But faith is also a consequence of action. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, faith is nurtured by obedient action. The Hebrew word for know is usually an action verb, something one does. To know love, one must not only know about love, one must act lovingly. Philosophers and theologians note how faith grows as people act on what little faith they have. . . . "The proof of Christianity really consists in 'following,'" declared Soren Kierkegaard.

So, what do you think? Does the practice of faith result in the habit of faith?