C.S. Lewis thoughts

Here are some really powerful thoughts that I ran across from C.S. Lewis in his collected works book "The Weight of Glory".

Speaking of God's claim on our whole lives he says:

"For He claims all, because He is love and must bless. He can not bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore in love, He claims all. There's no bargaining with Him. That is, I take it, the meaning of all those sayings that alarm me most... Law, in his terrible cool voice, said 'Many will be rejected on the last day, not because they have taken time and pains about their salvation, but because they have not taken time and pains enough'; and later... ' If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead.' Those are hard words to take."

And on forgiveness he says:

"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life - to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son - how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers every night 'forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.' We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God's mercy for our selves."