About 3 ½ years ago I was invited to speak at a conference on revival in Chicago. The other speakers were Tommy Tenney (author of The God Chasers), the second-in-command from the Brownsville revival and the vice-president from Morris Cerullo Ministries. During a conference break, the speakers migrated to the pastor’s office for some fellowship. As we mingled together the host pastor looked straight across the room and said, “Ron, you’ve written a best-seller on revival. What do you think the next revival will look like?”
Without hesitation I proclaimed, “Jim, I’m not looking for a revival, I’m looking for a reformation!”
With a stunned look on his face he pondered, “What’s the difference?”
It launched an ongoing conversation and thought process in my life. I knew Luther’s Reformation was far more impacting than any modern revival. It reformed how they saw themselves. Luther tacked 95 theses on a Wittenberg church door that forever changed the way we saw the Christian faith.
These 95 theses were based on 5 theological suppositions that were Latin phrases:
- Sola Christus – Christ alone
- It is only through the finished work of Jesus Christ alone that men might be saved and placed in right-standing (righteousness) with the Father.
- Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone
- Scripture is the final authority for salvation and sanctification of a Christian.
- Sola Gratia – grace alone
- Salvation (in its fullness) comes by grace(unmerited favor) alone; it is not by works (Eph. 2:8,9)
- Sola Fide – faith alone
- People who by one act of believing what God did by grace can be justified(made righteous) in the sight of God for all time (eternity).
- Soli deo Gloria – the glory of God alone
- All glory is due for God alone. It is time to stop building our kingdoms and build His.
Amazingly, in our postmodern, relativistic culture, all 5 tenets are being challenged in modern Christianity (read Organic Christianity for the details).
So, what would a New Reformation look like? Here are 5 tenets:
- It will be a movement of people not just a person. It will not be about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, but ordinary people doing extraordinary things (Acts 4:12; Eph. 3:9, 10 MSG).
- God’s people will have an intimacy with God through His incomprehensible grace. God’s grace promotes our intimacy with God that defeats spiritual schizophrenia and the trend of vicarious living that handcuffs the Body of Christ.
- The New Reformation will be based on believer’s understanding their identity in Christ. I define identity as knowing who God is, what He has already done, and who He has made you to be. We are not trying to get God to do what He has already done, but to receive what He has done by grace through faith (Eph. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:3).
- The New Reformation will bring us to a reformed understanding of faith. Faith is not about faith in our faith, but faith in His grace. Faith doesn’t believe God will, but God has.
- The New Reformation will complete or reform how we see the kingdom. The kingdom is not only the rule and reign of God, but the location and resources of God, through the finished work of Christ.
The New Reformation will reform how we see – or change the way we see God and change the way we see ourselves.
One Response
This is a great Word Pastor Ron!