Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Today is a church holiday called Reformation. It commemorates the work of the reformers, specifically Martin Luther, to try and bring the Catholic church back to a sound doctrinal position. He was a strong supporter of the church but did not support the places where they were deviating from scripture. His work to repair the problems in the Catholic church were ultimately unsuccessful, but the “protestants” did break off from the Catholic church to try and form churches that held to the teachings of the Bible.

As with all things human and sinful, some of those protestant groups also succumbed to falsehoods and inaccuracies over the years. It takes constant vigilance to keep the devil from eroding the basic truths of the Bible. That vigilance is what the church (or at least our church?) is really celebrating at Reformation. We’re not worshiping Martin Luther. We’re reminding ourselves to continue to test everything we are taught against the unerring Bible. We can sum it up in three phrases (often heard in Latin): sola scriptura, sola fide and sola gratia. Scripture alone reveals the saving work in Christ. Faith in that saving work of Christ is the only path to heaven. And grace, God’s undeserved love for us, is the only way we receive that saving work. If we hear teaching that involves non-Biblical “revelations from God”, requiring good works to get to heaven, or any part of the plan of salvation that requires our own input, those teachings are contrary to what God wrote for us in the Bible.

1 John 4:1-6

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Want to learn more? Our church body, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, has a lot of resources available.

This is the next installment of my “What does that religious celebration mean?” series. The first was Advent. We made it through Christmas. I forgot to write about Epiphany and now we’re onto Lent. So what is Lent?

Lent covers the six weeks before Easter and kicks off with Ash Wednesday. Many churches will have extra Wednesday night services so you end up going to church twice each week. The extra services are there to giive you even more time to reflect on the meaning of Lent. The whole point is to show us our need for a Savior and what’s about to happen at the end of Lent (Jesus’s death and His resurrection at Easter.) Lent reminds us WHY Jesus had to come to suffer, die and rise again. He did all that because we are sinners. The law that God sets forth in the Bible is very clear. He demands 100% aboslute perfection. If you can pull that off, you get into heaven. But as you probably guessed, that’s impossible .From the moment we are conceived, we’re sinful. If that’s all we covered in Lent services, it would be extremely depressing because we’d leave knowing that we’re heading straight to hell when we die. But the story doesn’t end there. After each reminder of our failures, we are presented with the reminder that Jesus came to pay the penalty for sin in our place. Through him, we are guaranteed spots in heaven and all that’s required is faith.

You may have heard people talk about Lent in terms of giving something up for the season. The idea has lost a lot of its good intentions. Many people now do it because they think they’re going to gain points with God if they choose to not eat Skittles or drink coffee during Lent. Nope. But giving up something for Lent can be a good thing if you use it as a constant daily reminder of the meaning behind the season for Lent.

So if you step into a Lent service, it might seem like a somber occasion. There’s black on the altar and there’s a lot of talk about all the suffering that Jesus had to endure because we are screwups. But stay for the end and you’ll hear the wonderful message of what that Jesus’s death and resurrection mean for us if we believe. We get eternal life in heaven. It’s the ultimate gift.