The Power of God Unto Salvation ...
People are hungry for a touch from God. No one seeks after the One True and Living God. He is high and holy and mankind's depraved hearts will not naturally seek after Him. But they know instinctively that there is something beyond this mortal life, and so we, humans, obsess over spiritual things. Look at the alternatives to seeking after God the devil has given to us. There are world religions like Islam and Hinduism (just to name two). There are alternative Christian cults (like the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormonism). There is the New Age movement (which encompasses almost everything in one way or another). There is Unitarianism. There is witchcraft and a host of earth religions. If religion is not your thing, there is environmentalism or Gaia (the living earth movement) worship. All this for people who are hungry to touch the transcendant.
But we Christians are little better. Consider the topic of revival. Whenever people find out that God is blessing some area, people flock to that spot. Roman Catholics have their apparitions of Mary. But we Protestants have our "special blessings." Think of the furor among Pentecostals a few years back in Toronto, Pensacola, and Kansas City. Every time someone claimed a special blessing from God, thousands of people would flock to that site hoping to feel a special touch from God. It seems, very few are immune to this kind of "felt need" ... the need to touch God in a tangible way.
But we find sound advice from none other than the great Reformer, Martin Luther. As he fought against the practice of relics and indulgences, he reminded us of the great truth that where the scriptures are faithfully preached, that in that place is the power of God. We do not need to run here and there looking for a sign from God or a demonstration of God's power. God's word and the Holy Spirit combined together to do the work of God and where they are working, there is the power of God.
Beloved friends, the Reformers rightly saw that in the proclamation of the word, what they called the "preached moment," that was THE moment of worship because in that moment, the Christian meets God tangibly, as God speaks to the Christian's soul through the word and Spirit. And this can happen anywhere the word of God, the Holy Scriptures are faithfully preached. Every place a bible believing Christian opens his Bible and hears with simple obedient faith and is changed to be conformed to the word, that is where the power of God is at work.
Our faith out not to be in preachers and personalities. It is not to be in places and things. It is not to be in relics and indulgences. It is not to be in subjective feelings. Our faith is in Christ, who is known to us through scripture and made alive in us by the Holy Spirit. Our faith, in short, is in God alone. We need to look no other place for a demonstration of the blessing and the power of God. Faith alone in Christ alone ... would that more of us had it...
People are hungry for a touch from God. No one seeks after the One True and Living God. He is high and holy and mankind's depraved hearts will not naturally seek after Him. But they know instinctively that there is something beyond this mortal life, and so we, humans, obsess over spiritual things. Look at the alternatives to seeking after God the devil has given to us. There are world religions like Islam and Hinduism (just to name two). There are alternative Christian cults (like the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormonism). There is the New Age movement (which encompasses almost everything in one way or another). There is Unitarianism. There is witchcraft and a host of earth religions. If religion is not your thing, there is environmentalism or Gaia (the living earth movement) worship. All this for people who are hungry to touch the transcendant.
But we Christians are little better. Consider the topic of revival. Whenever people find out that God is blessing some area, people flock to that spot. Roman Catholics have their apparitions of Mary. But we Protestants have our "special blessings." Think of the furor among Pentecostals a few years back in Toronto, Pensacola, and Kansas City. Every time someone claimed a special blessing from God, thousands of people would flock to that site hoping to feel a special touch from God. It seems, very few are immune to this kind of "felt need" ... the need to touch God in a tangible way.
But we find sound advice from none other than the great Reformer, Martin Luther. As he fought against the practice of relics and indulgences, he reminded us of the great truth that where the scriptures are faithfully preached, that in that place is the power of God. We do not need to run here and there looking for a sign from God or a demonstration of God's power. God's word and the Holy Spirit combined together to do the work of God and where they are working, there is the power of God.
Beloved friends, the Reformers rightly saw that in the proclamation of the word, what they called the "preached moment," that was THE moment of worship because in that moment, the Christian meets God tangibly, as God speaks to the Christian's soul through the word and Spirit. And this can happen anywhere the word of God, the Holy Scriptures are faithfully preached. Every place a bible believing Christian opens his Bible and hears with simple obedient faith and is changed to be conformed to the word, that is where the power of God is at work.
Our faith out not to be in preachers and personalities. It is not to be in places and things. It is not to be in relics and indulgences. It is not to be in subjective feelings. Our faith is in Christ, who is known to us through scripture and made alive in us by the Holy Spirit. Our faith, in short, is in God alone. We need to look no other place for a demonstration of the blessing and the power of God. Faith alone in Christ alone ... would that more of us had it...
posted by John | Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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