It is so easy in the Christian life to justify our inaction on a particular issue IF we can point to our activities in other areas. We may not be very interested in this need, but, HEY, we've done well in so many other areas. Surely we deserve a pass now. Similarly, we may excuse our inaction based on our long history of past successes. "The Lord knows how many years I have borne the heat of the battle. He'll understand why I don't get too excited about this. After, all," we protest, "doesn't the Bible teach that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth?" Thus we argue, and thus we deny our Lord.
Martin Luther would not have agreed with us at all! In a very convicting quotation I wrote in the front of one of my old Bibles years ago, I copied these words from the bold reformer:
If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing him. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier if proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
1 comment:
I remember this quote, one of Luther's most striking and challenging. I do think some believers have used this to justify being obnoxious, or to "fall on their sword" over every little matter...but the church for the most part isn't speaking out enough.
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