New Day With Jesus

"He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings."  Daniel 2:21 One of the great lessons of the Protestant Reformation is that God is not only the God of truth, but also the God of timing. Many faithful men before Martin Luther recognized errors within the medieval church and called for reform. Men such as John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in Bohemia courageously spoke against corruption and sought to bring God's Word back to the center of the church.  Yet their efforts were met with fierce opposition, and their influence was limited by the circumstances of their day. When Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, however, the world was different. The same God who had given Luther conviction had also prepared the moment in history for his message to spread. What appeared to be a coincidence was divine providence. Just decades before Luther's challenge to Rome, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the movable-type printing press ...

" For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast ."  - Ephesians 2: 8, 9. As a young monk, Martin Luther was tormented by the holiness of God and the reality of his own sinfulness. He fasted, prayed, confessed for hours, and practiced every spiritual discipline he knew, yet peace continued to elude him. The more he contemplated God's righteousness, the more condemned he felt. To Luther, God seemed distant, angry, and impossible to satisfy. Amid this spiritual darkness, one of his mentors, Johann von Staupitz, spoke words that helped redirect Luther's thinking. Rather than endlessly focusing on his own sins and failures, Staupitz pointed Martin toward Christ and reminded him of the goodness of God. He challenged Luther to stop looking for salvation within himself and instead look to the mercy revealed in Jesus Christ. This counsel would become a turning point in Luther's journey....