• 500

    by  •  • LifeStuff • 0 Comments

    Despite the fact the calendar said it was Halloween eve this evening, it was really just another night to watch baseball, and I was grateful after work to be able to go enjoy dinner and visit with my parents for a while before Game 6 of the World Series kicked off. This game, like the previous 5, was quality until the end, which left Los Angeles and Houston tied 3 games each, and left fans ready to see a winner-takes-all Game 7. This is a World Series that has not disappointed.

    Well, the truth is, I knew today was Halloween, but I also knew that, for me, the more important connotation of this day lay in the fact it was the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, signalling the beginning of the Reformation. In his day, Luther just wanted to get a few errors he saw in the church corrected, so he wrote the collection of disputations, hoping someone with more power in the Catholic church might take him seriously. Eventually, the church, and Germany, did.

    The Reformation’s accent on the availability of Scripture to the masses, and that a person could come to know God directly through the read Word, was passed down to impact me in my own life.

    The Reformation sought to re-orient Christianity on the original message of Jesus within the early church, and as a result of the collusion of Reformational thinkers, Five Solas emerged during the period to summarize the their theological convictions about the essentials of Christianity: that the highest authority of the believer within the church is Scripture (sola scrptura), that people are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ (sola fide), that people are saved by the grace of God alone (sola gratia), that Jesus alone is the Lord, King, and Savior (sola Christus, and that the believer lived for the glory of God alone (soli deo gloria).

    I have leaned heavily on the first three solas, particularly in tougher times of my life, because they remind me that God is involved in our mental and physical existence through His guidance found in the Bible, and that God must help bring those to Himself who wish to know Him and be His, and that God’s major instrument for changing human lives for the good is grace: his unflappable favor, which is available to those who seek Him and find Him, by His assistance.

    Luther reminds me that God is immensely kind and fair, in a day where kindness and fairness can be hard to find.

    I am grateful Luther had the nerve to make his frustrations about church life known 500 years ago, so that today, the Bible is readily available and read and relied upon by millions of people who hunger for His grace, His salvation, and his company.

    I am reminded today that I was for a long time one of these people, and I got off course quite a bit for a while.

    But I am still one of them.

    I still hunger for His presence, His grace, and His guidance in my life.

    I came across this song by Avalon today that was released nearly twenty years ago, and I remember that years ago, the words to this song summed me up pretty well.

    As I listened to it, I also remembered that I at that time long ago was the best me. I trusted and loved a lot more. And let Him sit in the center of my life.

    I should probably consider getting back to that place.

    About

    A web programmer by day, I somehow still spend a lot of time thinking about relationships, God, and the significance of grace and love in daily events. I am old school in the sense that I believe in the reality of sin, and in the need of each human heart for deliverance to the Divine. I am one of those who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that you can find most answers to life's pressing issues in Him and His Word, the Bible. I ain't perfect, and a lot of the time I ain't good, but by God's grace and kindness, I am forgiven and free.

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