A few more good Lewis quotes

Here are a few more quotes from Mere Christianity

In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.

For many of us the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear–fear of insecurity.

That is so upside-down to our world, I think. That there would be normal things that we’d like to do, like hit starbuck’s for a grande americano or get popcorn at the movies, but we can’t because we gave too much money away. Really, you would have to give A LOT of money away if you couldn’t do a simple thing like popcorn at a movie. wow.

This passage is really good:

That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or—if they think there is not—at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

And let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being “in Christ” or of Christ being “in them,” this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body.