Two famous men who got saved

 

Salvation is having faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly teaches that it’s a gift from God, made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul wrote to some Ephesian Christians stating that “…it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Faith in Jesus means trusting in Him as the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again. Such faith brings forgiveness, a new identity, eternal life and transformation. Christians then begin to reflect the characteristics of Jesus including love, humility, obedience, compassion, and perseverance.

One powerful story that illustrates this truth comes from Nicky Cruz, a notorious gang leader turned evangelist, whose story impacted Britain deeply through the ministry of David Wilkerson and the eventual film and book The Cross and the Switchblade. 

But perhaps the most relevant and influential British story is that of C.S. Lewis, the Oxford academic whose faith journey transformed lives worldwide. Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C.S. Lewis, was a professor at Oxford University and an avowed atheist for many years. Born in Belfast in 1898, Lewis was a brilliant scholar with a love for literature and mythology. His experience in the trenches during World War I left him further disillusioned with religion. Yet, through friendships with Christian colleagues like J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis began to seriously reconsider the claims of Christianity.

In 1931, after a long intellectual and spiritual struggle, Lewis surrendered his life to Christ. He described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” But this step of faith radically altered the course of his life.

Lewis didn’t simply believe in Jesus—he allowed that faith to reshape his values, purpose, and actions. He became one of the most prolific Christian writers of the 20th century, authoring Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia. His writings have reached millions, presenting the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel,  in a compelling, logical, and imaginative way.

What marked Lewis’s life after conversion was not just intellect but humility and love. He gave generously, responded to personal letters from readers, and bore personal suffering—such as the loss of his wife—with quiet faith. His salvation didn’t make him perfect, but it made him new.

Faith in Jesus Christ brings about real change. Notable characteristics evident in Lewis’s life, and in any truly saved life, include a recognition of personal sin and dependence on God. That’s humility. It also includes a growing love for God and others as well as a desire to follow God’s Word, even when facing difficult situations. 

Perseverance is also involved which is a steady faith that endures trials and suffering and is a life that points others to Christ, whether through words or actions.

Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ is not merely a religious decision; it is a life-changing encounter with the living God. C.S. Lewis’s journey from scepticism to vibrant faith reminds us that salvation is available to all, regardless of background or intellect. It’s not about joining a religion, but about entering a relationship with Jesus, who said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Faith saves, but true faith also transforms. As Lewis’s life shows, salvation through Jesus Christ creates a legacy that can echo across generations. What about your relationship to Jesus? Do you have a faith and daily seek to live life God’s way with God?

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

DAILY MESSAGES WITH MEANING (01/10/25)

Written by NIGEL BINDING 

C S Lewis Quotes

I have been in Belfast this week and have been staying around the corner from the church which C S Lewis attended. It got me thinking again about some of the things that he said. He had a lot of insight and wisdom. As you read these quotes please only accept them if they match the word of God (the Bible). Human wisdom on matters of the soul and God is only as good as the degree to which it reflects what God has said in his word. I do not say this out of disrespect for C S Lewis, but as with all of us everything he said was not necessarily true. We can however learn a lot from his wisdom. There are some quotes that purely relate to life which are also well worth pondering. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life - John 3:16 (the Bible)

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“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
― C.S. Lewis

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
― C.S. Lewis

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
― C.S. Lewis

“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...”
― C.S. Lewis

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― C.S. Lewis

“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.”
― C.S. Lewis

“You can make anything by writing.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career. ”
― C.S. Lewis

“He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.”
― C.S. Lewis

“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.”
― C.S. Lewis