15: Church Reformation: Outward Reordering and Inward Renewal
15
CHURCH REFORMATION
Outward Reordering and Inward Renewal
The word reformation is magic to my heart, just as I am sure it is to yours. Say reformation, and immediately we think of that heroic sixteenth-century era when so many momentous events that still burn bright in our imaginations took place.
OUR REFORMATION HERITAGE
We think, for instance, of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church, challenging, as it turned out, the whole religious system of his day. We think of Luther at Worms a few years later, facing the Holy Roman Emperor and being told that he must withdraw his challenges to the church and his testimony to justification by faith. His famous response to the emperor, nobles, and ecclesiastical dignitaries of central Europe was this: “Unless you prove to me by Scripture and plain reason that I am mistaken, I cannot and will not recant. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. There is nothing else I can do. God help me. Amen.” These magnificent words have echoed down through the centuries, and justly so.
Luther stuck to his guns. He translated the Bible into German, and he preached and wrote tirelessly to spread the evangelical message. He became the pioneer of reformation throughout Germany and northern Europe. His name will surely be honored as long as history lasts.
We think, too, of John Calvin, that shy scholar who wanted nothing more than to be a man of letters, reading and writing books during his entire life. But fierce, red-bearded Guillaume Farel told him he must settle in Geneva to share in the work of the Reformation there, and this he did. Sleeping only four hours a night, he not only preached daily sermons and discharged his full share of pastoral duties, but he also toiled away at his writing, producing among other masterpieces the Institutes, that great Christian statement that for many of us still stands in a class by itself. He also wrote commentaries on the greater part of Holy Scripture, setting new and superb standards of faithful exposition. Calvin died at fifty-five, absolutely worn out—another of God’s heroes.
We think also of John Knox, obliged to spend years as a galley slave because of his activities as a reformer and then finally rewarded by a few amazing weeks during which virtually the whole of Scotland turned to the Reformation. Almost overnight Scotland became the tenaciously Protestant nation that it has been from that day to this.
We think as well of the English martyrs. First in honor comes William Tyndale, who defied the king by translating the Bible. He was burned eventually in Belgium because Henry VIII sent word to the continent that he must be put to death.
Then there was Thomas Cranmer, Henry’s archbishop of Canterbury, who bided his time until it was possible to produce a Reformed confession of faith and a Reformed prayer book for the Church of England. All too soon Edward VI, his royal backer in this enterprise, died, and Mary came to the throne. She resolved to take England back to Rome. She had some 330 English Protestants burned at the stake, including five bishops—and Cranmer was one of them. They threw him into prison where he was put under intolerable pressure— today we would call it brainwashing. Because of this pressure Cranmer recanted his Protestant convictions, signing six documents to that effect a few days before he was to be burned at the stake. He had been told that if he signed, he would be pardoned.
When he found out the next day that he was going to be burned anyway, he sat up all night writing a recanting of his recantation. He read this aloud in St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, in the presence of his thunderstruck accusers, who then hurried him off to the fire. He died holding his right hand outstretched into the flames, thus fulfilling a promise from that last speech: “And forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished therefore; for may I come to the fire, it shall first be burned.”
These stories of Christian heroism remain vivid, just as the truths for which these Reformers lived and died remain precious. So when we say reformation, we naturally think of these events and thank God for them. The treasures of wisdom enshrined in the theology of these Reformers are more than we have mastered today, and the selfless strength of the Reformers’ testimony to the truth is a constant inspiration to us. Theirs is the faith in which I live and by which I hope to die, and I trust that the same is true of you also. Thank God for the Reformation!
THE OVERLOOKED ASPECT OF THE REFORMATION
Now we look at the church of our day and say, “We need another reformation.” But do we know what we are saying? As we form our idea of reformation from these historical memories, we are in danger of settling for too narrow a perspective of what reformation is—too narrow a notion of what it was in the past and too narrow a notion of what it will be in the future if God visits us once more. The achievements of the Reformation martyrs that I have mentioned do not tell the full story of this sixteenth-century movement. These are high spots that stick in our minds. But there was more to it than that.
Most of us are children of a tradition for which the historical name is Pietism. Pietism was an answer to deadness in state churches. The pietist movement brought together groups of lively Christians for Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and mutual encouragement. These groups became beacons of light in the dreary darkness of a semi-dead national church in country after country I am thinking here of Puritan associations in England in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I am thinking of the “praying societies” in the national church of Scotland and of regular meetings in Holland and Germany in the late seventeenth century. I think, too, of John Wesley’s Methodist societies in the days of the evangelical awakening in the eighteenth century and of many other midweek fellowship meetings that were set up in the English parishes that the revival touched. There were also Welsh societies, “experience meetings” as they were sometimes called, that began in the eighteenth century when the evangelical awakening hit Wales, and these continued until the end of the nineteenth century. God blessed these gatherings and made them sources of light and life to many as the years went by.
It is natural for Christians to get together in fellowship meetings to pray, praise God, and encourage each other. And it has happened in this century in parts of the world where little or nothing was known about the Reformation. I think of the revival fellowships that began to emerge in the East African church in the 1930s, mostly though not exclusively Anglican. Seventy years later in the wake of traumatic wars and genocide, the East African revival keeps flaring up in place after place, and fellowship gatherings are still at its heart.
In the days of the Reformation regular small group meetings had already begun. Luther started them, and the Reformer of Strasbourg, Martin Bucer, encouraged the pattern in his churches. He had a Latin name for it: Ecclesiola in ecclesia (the little church within the church). These fellowship structures are integral to the Reformation heritage.
Today we tend to follow the majority of Pietists in defining reformation as the outward activity of putting straight the doctrines formally professed by the organized church and the church order that went with them. We think of it as cleaning up superstition and sweeping out errors that have disfigured official religion. But we do not immediately think of reformation as involving an overall renewal of spiritual vitality. As inheritors of what may be called the pietist disjunction, we view the corporate renewal of spiritual life as something distinct from reformation. We believe the former is an inward work of God and should be spoken of in different terms from the latter. These are, we think, two separate realities; they are not necessarily connected. But we are wrong in this— historically and biblically—as I am going to show.
SUBSTANTIAL REFORMATION
The sixteenth-century upheaval that reshaped church doctrine and order was the outward aspect of an inward renewal of faith and devotion. This is a biblical pattern, as we will see. Conversely, whenever God visits his people with spiritual revival, some measure of outward reordering will be involved. That is plain from the scriptural evidence. The point to grasp is that what we are talking about is one work of God viewed from two standpoints, not two works. Reformation and renewal or revival are essentially one.
The Reformers saw themselves as pastors and evangelists no less than as theologians and ecclesiastical statesmen. This was true of Luther, Bucer, Calvin, Zwingli and their colleagues, and of all the British leaders. They saw themselves not only as “washing and cleansing the face” of the church—that is, getting doctrine, church order, and liturgy straight—but also as letting loose the Gospel of God that through the Spirit transforms whole communities and brings new faith, love, and life wherever it is preached.
In the sixteenth century this was what actually happened. Calvin’s Geneva took John Knox’s breath away. He described it as the most perfect school of Christ the world had seen since the days of the apostles. Godliness and righteousness were everywhere. Calvin’s Geneva was not just formally and outwardly right; it was inwardly, substantially, spiritually right—a genuinely godly community.
The same was true of Scotland in John Knox’s great days and also of England in ways that most history books overlook. The records of reactions to the preaching of such men as Latimer and Bradford and of the sudden blossoming of Christian philanthropy in England tell their own clear story. The work that God did touched clergy and laypeople with spiritual life and reshaped the organized church into a stance of formal correctness.
When we talk about reformation, then, we should realize that we are talking about a two-sided and yet single vivifying work of God. The Puritans give us the right perspective. They saw the sixteenth-century Reformers as used by God to start reformation by establishing the Gospel in the English church, and themselves as seeking to be used by God to complete the reforming process by converting the English people to a living faith in Christ.
Perhaps you have heard of Richard Baxter, the Puritan evangelist of Kidderminster in the English midlands. In seventeen years he produced a Christian community half the size of Calvin’s Geneva, which in moral and spiritual quality was equal or superior to Geneva. There was an amazing transformation of that town under his ministry. Family catechizing, family worship, a public worship pattern full of praise, church discipline, preaching, devotional reading, regular pastoral counseling, and small-group ministry under Baxter’s oversight were all part of it, and reformation was Baxter’s name for it.
He wrote a classic book on ministerial practice entitled The Reformed Pastor. By the word reformed Baxter meant spiritually alive and morally in shape, not merely maintaining what we would call Calvinistic doctrine, though he assumes that. His meaning becomes clear when he writes: “If God would but reform the clergy, the people of England would soon be reformed.” Kidderminster was a model parish, and Baxter wrote a full account of it because he believed other communities would profit by his experience. He hoped he would see wholesale revival in England in his day. That, to him, would have been reformation finally fulfilled.
But his hopes came to nothing. After the restoration of Charles II, two thousand Puritan clergy were ejected from their pulpits, and the national reaction against godliness lasted for more than half a century. Baxter was heartbroken, for he believed that, given twenty-five more years of the Puritan ministry he had seen and known and been part of countrywide during the Commonwealth decade, the conversion of the English people would have become a reality. Yet the inspiration of his Kidderminster ministry remains, and we do well to take it to heart today. Both Calvin’s Geneva and Baxter’s Kidderminster show the full dimensions of the revitalizing work of grace that we are examining.
BIBLICAL EXAMPLES OF REFORMATION
The Bible records many striking spiritual movements that the textbooks usually call reformations. In every case this same two-sidedness applies. These movements had an outward aspect; immorality and idolatry were put away. But they also had an inward side; men and women were stirred to seek God and renew their covenant with him.
Joshua 24, for instance, tells how Joshua at the end of his life called the people together and challenged them, saying, “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Josh. 24:14-15).
The people replied, “We too will serve the LORD” (v. 18). Joshua served God; they would do the same.
Joshua continued confrontationally, as preachers sometimes must, for reality’s sake. “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins” (v. 19). The people insisted, however, that they would serve God, and a covenant was made. It seems that for a time there was a true return to God as Joshua commanded.
In 2 Chronicles three striking renewals are recorded, led in each case by a godly king. Chapter 15 tells of reformation under King Asa. “When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Obed the prophet, he took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the LORD that was in front of the portico of the LORD’s temple” (v. 8). This is reformation in our usual narrow sense, a matter of putting right the outward form of things. But in this movement there was more. Asa gathered the people together, and they committed themselves solemnly to the Lord by sacrifice: “They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul” (v. 12). It was what so many thousands in Europe did in the sixteenth century: They set themselves to seek the Lord with all their being. “They took an oath to the LORD with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side” (vv. 14-15).
In 2 Chronicles 29-31 we hear of Hezekiah’s reformation. Chapter 29 records how Hezekiah systematically rooted out idolatry, and then chapter 30 tells in detail how Hezekiah brought the people together to keep a solemn passover to God and to renew their commitment. The week of the passover became such a momentous time to them spiritually that they lengthened it. We read, “The whole assembly then agreed to celebrate the festival seven more days; so for another seven days they celebrated joyfully” (30:23). They were saying, “This time in the Lord’s presence has been so good, so enriching, so momentous in our experience that we will extend it.” And they did. Verse 26 says, “There was great joy in Jerusalem.” New closeness to God always brings joy, and new closeness was the reason why joy was great in Jerusalem in those days.
In 2 Chronicles 34-35 we read of reformation under Josiah. (There is a parallel and supplementary account in 2 Kings 22-23.) Israel was surrounded by nations that worshiped nature gods represented by idols, and idolatry kept flowing over the borders to corrupt successive generations of Israelites, just as nowadays in this era of swift communication the so-called wisdom of the East comes flooding into North America in the New Age movement. In the seventh century B.C. the effect of Hezekiah’s reformation in the previous century wore off, paganism took over, and once more purging had to take place. Chapter 34 tells how Josiah stamped out idolatry. Then in 2 Chronicles 35 we read about the other side of the renewal—passover worship and praise.
There was a similar movement under Ezra, recorded in chapters 9-10 of his book. Ezra 9 documents the outward aspects of revival in the ceremonial putting away of pagan wives who, contrary to the will of God, had been taken in marriage by Israelites. The people repented. Then Ezra prayed for forgiveness, and there was a new commitment to God by those who had sinned. This was the inward reality of reformation— that is, spiritual renewal.
In Nehemiah 8-10 the outward form of reformation was a return to Scripture, as explained by Ezra and a team of preachers. The people were moved to tears, and a great national recommitment followed. Reformation? Yes. But it had both an inward aspect and an outward aspect, as the tears and subsequent rejoicing show.
What these Old Testament stories make plain to us is that reformation of the church is a work of God that revitalizes faith and worship, as well as leading to doctrinal and liturgical corrections. Complementing these stories and confirming this perspective is the New Testament narrative of Pentecost in Acts 2. At Pentecost renewal came through movement out of the old covenant into a new order of things in the Spirit. We would ordinarily call it a movement of revival rather than of reformation. But notice how from the start the body of believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). This was a new corporate lifestyle. “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people” (v. 46). The inward aspect came from faith in Christ; it expressed itself in joy. But it had as its outward aspect worship, regular prayer, and celebration of the Lord’s Supper—a genuinely reformed order for church life. Inward and outward went together, as in the Old Testament visitations from God.
In Revelation 2-3 the same two-sidedness appears. The Savior rebukes the churches, telling them to put away their sins and return to him. But for what? For the outward reordering of their corporate lives? Yes, certainly, but for much more than that—for true spiritual renewal in every department of their personal lives as well.
Spiritual movements vary in what they exhibit, but in them there is always some element of outward purging, reshaping, and reforming, and some element of the inner renewing of faith and communion with God. The late Max Warren helpfully linked revival with reformation by picturing revival as the re-forming—that is, the fresh forming up, briefing, and refitting—of troops for battle so that the army may go forward to fight again. This is a good image to have in mind as we reflect on the outward and inward dimensions of God’s quickening visitations. Whether we call them works of renewal, revival, or reformation is not important so long as we are clear on the broad scope of what God actually does when he visits.
THE ELEMENTS IN TRUE REFORMATION
What would a work of divine reformation in our churches today look like? I must be careful here. Different churches have different problems and needs, so generalizations could easily misfire. Current movements professing to bring new life to churches might suspect me of implying negative judgments about them, which is not my purpose. My best course is to try to answer the question by listing some of the realities that any coming of God to reform his people would produce anywhere at any time.
First, there would be a sense of biblical authority—that is, an awareness that biblical teaching is divine truth and that the invitations and admonitions, threats and warnings, promises and assurances of Scripture still express the mind of God toward mankind. The Bible would be honored again as the Word of God, and the perverse pluralism of liberal theology, which still addles the brains and blinds the hearts of many, would wither and die. The root of this pluralism is that teachers feel free to ignore some of the things the Bible teaches and to pull others out of context; the fruit of it is that God’s people are led astray into dry places, and the Holy Spirit of God is comprehensively quenched. Reformation always begins as a call from God to “come out of the wilderness” of subjective speculation and spiritual impotence and learn again in humility the true teaching of the written Word about grace and godliness, knowing that the secret of power for living lies here. Thus, unhappily, reformation always leads to controversy, for some resist the message.
Second, there would be a spirit of seriousness about eternal issues. Heaven and hell would be preached about, thought about, and talked about once again. Life in this world would once again be lived in the light of the world to come, and the Philippian jailer’s question, “What must I do to be saved?” would be seen as life’s basic question once more. For most of this century the church, liberal and conservative, in all denominations, has been so occupied with this world that hearts tuned to eternity have been the exception rather than the rule. Sociopolitical, cultural, sporting, and money-making interests have dominated Christian minds rather than the laying up of treasure in heaven. A work of reformation would change that, not by withdrawing Christians from these fields of action, but by radically altering their perspective on what they are doing, so that God’s glory and eternal values would become the chief concerns.
Third, there would be a passion for God transcending any interest in religion or cultivation of religiosity. One’s relationship to God would be seen as the most important thing in the world, and a Bible-based awareness of the greatness and awesomeness of God the eternal Savior-Judge, in whose hands we ever are, would displace all cheap thoughts of God as just a useful pal.
Fourth, there would be a love of holiness, growing out of deep conviction of sin, deep repentance, deep gratitude for forgiveness and cleansing through the blood of Jesus Christ, and with that a deep desire to please God. Casualness about righteousness, cutting moral corners, areas of blatant self-indulgence, love of luxury, and broken commitments of all kinds have disfigured modern Christianity at all levels. This would change, as indeed it needs to, for moral standards among Christian people, as in the world around them, seem to be getting worse rather than better. It is frightening to see how little believers nowadays seem to be bothered about personal sin.
Fifth, there would be a concern for the church. Christians would catch the biblical perspective in which the church is the center and focal point of God’s plan and the display ground of his saving and sanctifying wisdom (see Eph. 3:1-12). They would be deeply concerned about the image that the church presents to the world, and any form of unfaithfulness, carnality, false doctrine, formalism, disorder, or wrongheadedness in the church would cause them distress and send them to their knees. God should be honored, not dishonored, in his church, and the church should show itself strong in standing against the world and testifying to its Savior. These are universal Christian concerns at reformation times, and saints at such times will endure and risk anything in order to see the church move in the right direction.
Sixth, there would be a willingness to change—whether from sin to righteousness, or from lassitude to zeal, or from traditional patterns to new procedures, or from passivity to activity, or any other form of change needed. Believers would come together to praise, pray, encourage each other, and see what they could do together to advance the cause of Christ. It would be as if they had awakened after a long sleep. They would wonder how they were able to be somnolent, apathetic, and inactive for so long. What new things they would find themselves doing cannot be specified in advance beyond this general formula, but should God work in reformation, it is safe to say that newness of discipleship and change of ways in some shape or form would be the experience of us all.
THE NATURE OF TRUE REFORMATION
What I have to say about the work of God itself can now be summarized in five points.
1. Reformation is a divine visitation. This is Zechariah’s message. Visions of renewal and restoration that fill the first few chapters of his prophecy prompted Calvin more than four hundred years ago to say, “This doctrine may be fully applied to our age”; we may equally apply it to our own century. Zechariah wrote, “Therefore, this is what the LORD says, ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. . . .’ Proclaim further: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem’” (Zech. 1:16-17). This is reformation in its outward aspect, and it is of God. But with it, says Zechariah, the Lord brings the inward reality too. “‘Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,’ declares the LORD” (Zech. 2:10). Such divine visitation is the inmost heart of any truly significant change in the condition of the church.
2. Reformation is a work of Jesus Christ. In Revelation 2-3 renewal is pictured as Jesus coming down from his throne by the Spirit and drawing near to rebuke, reorder, and revitalize his people and enable them to overcome pressures currently overwhelming them. This is needed today. Sin and worldliness, error and folly have crept in, as we all know only too well. Churches are corrupted. Purging is needed. Spiritual light burns dim. The secular community goes downhill like the Gadarene swine rushing toward the edge of the cliff; the church has lost its influence and cannot stop the decline. How different from the sixteenth century! The Lord Jesus again and again must come to us to raise up a standard against the evil that comes in like a flood.
3. Reformation is a constant task for God’s people. We cannot restore spiritual life, but there is something we can do to prepare the way for Christ’s coming to reform his church: We can turn away from error and sin, and thereby prepare the way of the Lord, removing roadblocks and making straight a highway for God into our lives. Undoubtedly this is what is meant by that famous slogan, which I am sure we have heard but have never perhaps thought about as we should: Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda (the church that has been reformed needs always to be reformed). That tag has to do, not simply with outward order, but with renewal of inward spiritual life.
4. Reformation has a constant evangelistic overflow. Zechariah’s vision of restoration ends thus: “In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you’” (8:23; see vv. 20-22). What this points to is that new life from God in a group becomes an attractive force.
The word evangelistic, no doubt, suggests to modern Christians special efforts at outreach (crusades, rallies, designated meetings of all sorts), as if evangelism were an activity detached from regular church life. That idea reflects the highlighting of these special activities during the past century when most, if not all, churches were very far from their best. But when in reformation the church comes alive, persons from outside find themselves wanting to share what is going on, and this drawing power is continuous and considerable.
When Augustine declared that God made us for himself and our hearts are restless till they find rest in him, he stated a universal truth. One of God’s ways of drawing the restless into his fellowship of life and peace through Christ is to allure them by what they see in others. Acts 2:43-47 shows this happening in the apostolic church right after Pentecost, and the pattern is permanently valid.
5. Reformation always begins with repentance, seeking God in new ways and putting away wrong things. This is clear from Christ’s words to his people in the letters of the book of Revelation, just as it is clear from the stories of spiritual movements in Old Testament times.
Revelation 3:18-20 answers the question: What can we do to bring about reformation? This passage tells us that the people of God must do three things. First, perceive—perceive, that is, the grim reality of their current situation, just as our Lord called on the Laodiceans to perceive the depths of their own spiritual need. They said they were rich, but they did not realize that they were “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” Jesus said, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline” (vv. 17, 19). We must leave behind unrealism and stop pretending all is well when it is not well and face the guilt of our own unfaithfulness and halfheartedness.
Second, pray. We can talk to Jesus about our need and beg him to draw near to us and in mercy deal with our lukewarmness. The great men of the sixteenth-century Reformation were praying men. They knew that without prayer nothing can be expected to go right, and they acted accordingly. Luther confessed, with startling spiritual realism, “I am too busy to spend less than three hours a day in prayer.” It was said that Mary Queen of Scots feared the prayers of John Knox more than she feared the armies of England. The Lord calls us to become men and women of prayer: “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Rev. 3:18). Jesus tells us to take note of his rebuke and respond in prayer.
Third, prepare. We may prepare the way of the Lord in the sense suggested by Isaiah 40:3-4, where it is said, “‘In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”’ That means clear the road, throw out the stones, get rid of the roadblocks. Sins embraced are roadblocks. We must forsake them. Ask God to search your heart. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23-24). Pray the psalmist’s prayer and ask God to show you what stones need to be put away. Isaiah says that “every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed” (40:4-5). This will happen in part through the work of God’s people preparing and clearing the road.
We can ask the Lord to search us right now. We can ask him to save us from that desensitizing complacency that has made us lukewarm, halfhearted Christians, living with perfect orthodoxy (I expect) in our heads and yet like those in a dream—with no spiritual vitality in our hearts.
That is what we are summoned to do in Revelation 3:20. This was not written as an evangelistic text, though it has often been used that way. It was written to backsliding believers. So when Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me,” he is calling for repentance and promising a renewal of fellowship and strength to those who heed his call. Will you hear Jesus as he speaks to you? Will you open the door? Will you enthrone him at the center of your personal and church life?
Scripture teaches us not simply to think but also to act with regard to reformation. We cannot precipitate it, but we can put ourselves in the way where it is found. What we can do, we should do. That we, his people, should seek church reformation in this holistic sense is part of his plan for us. May God give us ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to respond, and wills to act. As he speaks to us in these days, may we realize that it is he himself drawing near to us and that he is on his throne to renew us, sustain us, reform us, and finally bring us to glory. Praise to him forever! Amen.