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{"id":5251,"date":"2015-09-03T04:55:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/northamptonseminar\/?p=5251"},"modified":"2015-09-03T05:03:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T09:03:58","slug":"cs-lewis-on-praising-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/northamptonseminar\/2015\/09\/03\/cs-lewis-on-praising-god\/","title":{"rendered":"CS Lewis on praising God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Is God an egotist?<\/p>\n

Why does He repeatedly tell us to praise Him?<\/p>\n

Jonathan Edwards had his answer for this in\u00a0The End for Which God Created the World<\/em>: God\u2019s glory and our joy. \u00a0God knows that a life of praise brings us into the joy of the Trinity.<\/p>\n

CS Lewis said something similar. \u00a0When the psalmists tell us to praise God they \u201cwere doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. . . . We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. . . . Lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are . . . because the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is one of the many fascinating peeks into CS Lewis\u2019 personal spiritual life that Lyle Dorsett provides in his S<\/em><\/a>eeking the Secret Place: The Spiritual Formation of CS Lewis<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(Brazos).<\/p>\n

Dorsett reports that Lewis thought our experience of God, and of His beauty, comes especially when we worship in the liturgy with others. \u00a0 \u00a0Lewis was \u201cdevoted to corporate worship and prayer. \u00a0He saw community worship in one\u2019s particular church as indispensable to spiritual health and growth. \u00a0In addition to maintaining his routine of regular worship at College Chapel, or Dean\u2019s Prayers as he called it, he felt constrained to attend his parish church on Sundays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis wrote that it is it is in corporate worship that \u201cGod communicates His presence to men. . . . For many people at many times the \u2018fair beauty of the Lord\u2019 is revealed chiefly or only while they worship Him together.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the only book that narrates in full the details of Lewis\u2019 spiritual development\u2013such as Lewis\u2019 spiritual direction by Father Walter Adams. \u00a0It is a rich read.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"