Back to Basics

I have been reading quite a bit of Martin Luther's writings lately. I'm fascinated by him as he was clearly called by God, as is evidenced by his great revelation of grace, to reveal grace to a church that scarcely existed due to the false teachings of Catholicism.

His writings have stirred my mind with thoughts that perhaps the reason I am stuck in such a place of apathy and sin, is because I haven taken my eyes off the Gospel. Not that I was rejecting it, but that I had not been paying close attention to grace, renewing my mind. My heart needs constantly be refreshed by the grace of Christ, otherwise, I am in danger of forgetting or considering the Gospel of little worth. Thus, the power to overcome apathy and sin is quenched. I could say apathy toward the Gospel is a form of unbelief, and not long after unbelief, do we see the fruits of it.

After reading only a few pages of Luther's argument for case of Christ's salvation, I felt myself renewed and energized.

I had thought that I knew the Gospel and was free from the fear of Christ's judgment, and indeed I have been, but I believed that I needed to move onto discipline and leave behind the Gospel. Not that I didn't need it anymore, but I felt my knowledge was sufficient, and while the revelation I have had of grace has been, without question, great, I am never to move onto something else. The Gospel is my salvation and my power for Godly living. How could I have been so deluded? I knew this from the beginning.

I write this to say to myself, and other believers, that we ought to stay awake and, "gird up the loins of our minds" with the Gospel of Christ.

The Gospel is all we need. We do not need to focus on discipline, however, we must be aware that discipline does have it's place, but only when the mind is set on Christ and on his Gospel.