Convinced By Scripture

When Martin Luther stood before the council of the church, he expected to be heard, but instead, he was told there would be no discussion; he had to recant or be condemned. He asked for a day to think about it, came back the next day, and said unless Scripture convinced him, he couldn’t recant. This was a defining moment in church history. For all his flaws, and there are many, we need boldness like Luther’s today.

Martin Luther is not someone I choose to emulate in my spiritual walk; he had a vulgar mouth and was very antisemitic in his last years. Yet, there is a lesson we need to learn from Luther, Scripture is our guide and the thing we are bound to not man.

Across the board in the Church today, many of us have been bound by denominational tradition, and we submit through fear tactics and spiritual threats. Like Luther, we are told we can’t have convictions; there will be no discussion, and we must simply submit to the powers that be. As I have watched things unfold in the Body of Christ over the last several months, I have had a continuing realization: each of us is called by God, will stand before God, and in Scripture, we are to submit to one another in love.

The motto of the Reformation was “Always Reforming.” It is time to continue the reformation in our own lives, in our local fellowships, and across the Church at large.

Isaiah 58:12 KJV “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”

It is time for each of us to come to God in humility, to throw off bondage and manipulation of ungodly structures in the Church, and to cry aloud, spare not, and lift our voices like trumpets for repentance and awakening in the House of God.

America cannot be restored until the Church has repented and returned to righteousness. How have we, as individuals, followed unbiblical leadership? Have we submitted in areas we shouldn’t have? Have we stayed quiet when we should have spoken up? If we speak up and it is not heard, we leave and shake the dust from our feet. God is writing ‘the glory has departed’ over many places right now; in some cases, we are discovering there was never any glory there, just emotional manipulation.

But our hearts don’t need to be troubled as we look to God and believe in Jesus. The Lord is purifying His Church; we are seeing lampstands lose light because that is exactly what happens when people don’t repent.

The thing is, we don’t have to lose our faith because of failed leaders. Our faith is in God and His Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit will continue in the Church. As hard as this is to hear, many of us realize we have been too dependent upon man; we have even allowed leaders to cause us to question the truth or ignore checks in our spirits when we test them to see if they are from God.

Many have heavy hearts right now; some are confused, and we can’t believe “great leaders” have done fill-in-the-blank. But this is a perfect time to be reminded that the greatest of ministers are just men at the end of the day. It’s time to throw off the labels and say no to control and manipulation; whether it be through books, conferences, live streams, manipulative promises, and prophecies, it’s time for the Body of Christ to rise up and say Jesus is Lord and His Kingdom will be built, and we will let man’s empires crumble to the ground because they were never God’s to begin with. It’s time to claim the cornerstone of the reformation again: The Scripture, not man, as our authority.

Draw close to Jesus during this time, and get in the Word. Test things with the Word. Jesus is enough; it’s time to let Him be enough for us and let celebrity Christianity die the death God is bringing to it.