Devotion - Monday, October 26

Yesterday’s Reformation sermon (posted at http://chrisheavner.blogspot.com/) generated several responses. As I had expected, it unsettled some. As he was leaving the worship service, one member of the congregation said, “I would take opposition to what you said.”
Basically, the sermon asserted that the Reformation can be traced to Martin Luther’s fear that his sins were not to be forgiven. He struggled to believe that God would forgive him. When he was finally able to accept the affirmation of scripture that we are justifed by grace, not by works of the law, he began to oppose the Church’s restrictions on forgiveness.
I said that it is God’s work to save us – not our own. I said that the faith which serves to receive the gift of salvation is also a gift from God. This is where my fellow UniLu member expressed opposition. “I have always been told that we have to have faith first,” he said.
This is the issue which divided the early reformation movement. Luther believed that God comes to us; those who became known as the Reformed Church believed that one had to have faith in order for God’s grace to gain a foothold.
I tried to assure the one who shared the comment with me that there are more Reformed Christians in the world (certainly more in the southern US) than Lutherans. Many have chosen the path which insists that faith must be there for the sacraments to have the desired effect on us.

This is no place for a long, drawn out theological debate. (And I am sure that in my attempt to be brief this morning I have committed many oversights.) My intention is to point out this divide within the Church. My hope is that we might toe this line and engage in the life-long debate as to what we believe. Standing firmly where God has planted us, we will all come to a better understanding of how it is that God’s grace and God’s salvation has taken hold of us and our lives.