Reformation Day - 3 Things

1. Isn't it interesting how God will use seemingly insignificant actions in our lives to change the world? 492 years ago today, Luther, a relatively obscure monk in a little town in Germany, had just nailed a piece of paper to the door of a church. Little did he know that he had changed the course of western history. You really never know what God is going to do with your life.
   
   
2. There's 2 books I've read about the Reformation that I really enjoyed, so I thought I'd mention them for the occasion:
   
   The Reformation by T.M. Lindsay. This book totally enlightened the way I saw the Reformation. It tells the story of the Reformation from the beginning with Luther to the end during the 30 Years War. It explains its progress in countries you rarely hear of it happening in, like Scandinavia or the Netherlands. And the book doesn't leave you with merely the events of the Reformation - the last section of the book is devoted to the ideas and principles that fueled the movement. I'm of the opinion that every Christian should read this book. :-) Google Books also has it for online reading here.
   
   Ladies of the Reformation by J.H. Alexander. To sum it up, this book is about the great women behind the great men of the Reformation. In the back there's a handy timeline comparing important dates in the lives of each of these women. Also included throughout the book are interesting old-fashioned pictures of the places mentioned and portraits of some of the women.
   
   
3. This day makes me especially thankful for my Bible. Not only can I read it in my own language, I may do so without fear of being executed for it. God's Word is an incredibly priceless gift. One of the greatest experiences is the lightbulb moment that comes when you're reading the Bible, and a verse you've never noticed before suddenly stands out and God uses it to teach you something new, or remind you of something important. There are so many "Christians" out there today who let theirs sit on a shelf and collect dust. What a tragedy! They don't realize that they're groping in the darkness, without a lamp for their feet or a light for their path.

On Meditation

Thomas Watson:

Without meditation the truths that we know will never affect our hearts. Deuteronomy 6:6: "These words which I command this day shall be in thine heart." How can the Word be in the heart unless it is wrought in by meditation? As a hammer drives a nail to the head, so meditation drives a truth to the heart. It is not the taking in of food, but the stomach's digesting it that turns it into nourishment. Just so, it is not the taking in of a truth at the ear, but the meditating on it, that is the digestion of it in the mind, that makes it nourish. Without meditation, the word preached may increase notion, but not affection. There is as much difference between the knowledge of a truth and the meditation on a truth as there is between the light of a torch and the light of the sun. Set up a lamp or torch in the garden and it has no influence. But the sun has a sweet influence: it makes the plants to grow and the herbs to flourish. Just so, knowledge is like a torch lighted in the understanding that has little or no influence; it does not make a man the better. But meditation is like the shining of the sun. It operates upon the affections; it warms the heart and makes it more holy. Meditation fetches life in a truth. There are many truths that lie, as it were, in the heart dead. But these truths, when we meditate upon them, begin to have life and heat in them. It is meditation that makes a Christian.

Humility

Henry Scougal:

That which makes anybody esteem us, is their knowledge or apprehension of some little good, and their ignorance of a great deal of evil that may be in us; were they thoroughly acquainted with us, they would quickly change their opinion.

The thoughts that pass in our heart in the best and most serious day of our life, being exposed unto public view, would render us either hateful or ridiculous; and now, however we conceal our failings from one another; yet sure we are conscious of them ourselves, and some serious reflections upon them would much qualify and allay the vanity of our spirits. Thus holy men have come really to think worse of themselves than any other person in the world: not but that they knew that gross and scandalous vices are in their nature more heinous than the surprisals of temptations and infirmity, but because they are much more intent on their own miscarriages, than on those of their neighbors, and did consider all the aggravations of the one, and everything that might be supposed to diminish and alleviate the other.

But it is well observed by a pious writer, that the deepest and most pure humility does not so much arise from the consideration of our own faults and defects, as from a calm and quiet contemplation of the divine purity and goodness. Our spots never appear so clearly as when we place them before this infinite Light; and we never seem less in our own eyes than when we look down upon ourselves from on high. Oh! how little, how nothing do all those shadows of perfection then appear, for which we are wont to value ourselves! That humility which comes from a view of our own sinfulness and misery, is more turbulent and boisterous, but the other lays us full as low, and wants nothing but that anguish and vexation wherewith our souls are apt to boil when they are the nearest object of our thoughts.

(pp. 131-132 in The Life of God in the Soul of Man)