faith for faith

To those who know me, it is scarcely a secret that I have been in a valley of sorts, spiritually speaking. And lest it be misunderstood as of what I am speaking, my communion with God has been lacking, my desire for the things of the God has been quelled, and my life has been consumed with things that are passing instead of with things that are everlasting. And there is little mystery behind why these things have been so (namely arising from and perpetuated by a lack of beholding Christ in his Word and communing with his people), and yet I have done little to remedy my state. I have been till recently content to feed myself with the fleeting things of this age instead of feasting upon riches of God and his glory in his Son.

Yet to be honest, content is much too strong a word. For I have found little contentment in the those things which deterred me from beholding Christ, and I have found no rest for my soul in those fleeting things. And despite this, the Adversary had convinced me that the things of God were laborious and that there was little reward for chasing after them. And so he (being the slick devil that he is) convinced me, figuratively speaking, again and again, meal after meal, that it was better for me to drive across the street to eat off the Wendy’s value menu than to drive a few miles down the road to dine at the Ruth’s Chris.

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On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther boldly posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. In that document, Luther listed numerous grievances against the false doctrines forced by the Catholic church upon the ignorant masses, chief among them being the selling of indulgences–a papist fundraiser that claimed that absolution of sins could be bought with silver. Luther outraged that the work of Christ was spit and trampled upon by those who claimed to be the church, composed his grievances and posted them for the world to see, essentially rendering his life forfeit. By the grace of Guttenberg, the document spread across Europe like a wildfire and reformer’s life was spared, and it ignited what has come to be known as the Protestant Reformation, finally dethroning the wicked tyrant of Roman ignorance that had for centuries forbade that God’s people worship him in Spirit and in truth.

Despite the great victory that the Church of Christ achieved through the Reformation, the victory was merely that of a battle, not the War. For while the papist reign of ignorance was defeated by faithful men and the printing press, ignorance about God’s Word abounds nonetheless. Unlike the time of Luther where ignorance was cultivated by a lack of information, we in our day are flooded with information and have countless translations of the Scriptures into English. All of us in America can place our hands upon a copy of the Scriptures at a moment’s notice, be they printed or on the internet, and yet many in our churches are ignorant of the Faith regardless.

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