Saturday 3rd October 2020 Devotion
Scripture:- Habakkuk 2:1-20
Topic:- Martin Luther [1]
Text:- Habakkuk 2:4
In the sixteenth century, the church world was divided about Martin Luther. One Catholic thought Martin Luther was a “demon in the appearance of a man.” In our day, nearly 500 years hence, the verdict is nearly unanimous to the good. Both Catholics and Protestants affirm he was not only right about a great deal, but he changed the course of Western history for the better.
Martin Luther, (born November 10, 1483, Eisleben, Germany was a German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.
Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions, mainly Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Anglican Communion, the Anabaptists, and the Antitrinitarians.
His father was a copper miner. In July 1505, Luther had a life-changing experience that set him on a new course to becoming a monk.
Luther studied at the University of Erfurt and in 1505 decided to join a monastic order, becoming an Augustinian friar. He was ordained in 1507, began teaching at the University of Wittenberg and in 1512 was made a Doctor of Theology.
But the first few years of monastic life were difficult for Luther, as he did not find the religious enlightenment he was seeking.
A mentor told him to focus his life exclusively on Jesus Christ and this would later provide him with the guidance he sought.
To the many questions in his head sparked up an inquiry which had no answer yet and he was ordered to take his doctorate in the Bible and become a professor at Wittenberg University.
During lectures on the Psalms (in 1513 and 1514) and a study of the Book of Romans, he began to see a way through his dilemma. “At last meditating day and night, by the mercy of God.
I … began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith.
Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open.”
Prayer Point:- Oh Lord God, help me to to understand faith more than before and to live by it henceforth by fire, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Have A Blessed Saturday!