Martin Luther was born in Germany. His parents raised him strictly in the Catholic tradition. As a 21-year-old young man, a lightning bolt struck him to the ground. He survived and saw it as a sign that God was calling him to become a priest. Luther learned to serve God according to very strict monastery rules.
Day after day, Luther tried to win God’s favour through fasting and prayer, among other things. He even went so far as to sleep without blankets on some winter nights because he wanted to rid his body of worldly desires. Yet he was never satisfied with his efforts, and God’s demands were simply too high for him. Every day he had to try harder and harder to win God’s favour and to please God.
In desperation, Luther went to Rome, which at that time was regarded as the holiest city on earth. There Luther became even more disillusioned by priests who treated people without love, as well as by stories of immorality among church leadership. Later, Luther became a professor at a university in Wittenberg. He remained deeply devoted to God and confessed his guilt and sins for hours every day.
(Listen to all his efforts! … and in the process, he misses grace. Very sad.)
However, Luther gradually discovered that God loves him and that God wants him, Martin, to love God. He increasingly discovered how much Jesus loved us. He discovered that Jesus has compassion for our weaknesses and does not only want to judge and reject us. He discovered that faith is all he can offer God in response to what God has freely and undeservedly done for him.
Luther acted very decisively on his discoveries from God’s Word. He realised that the church was making money from poor people by selling them letters of forgiveness. Therefore, he nailed his discoveries about grace to the doors of the church in Wittenberg. The church demanded that Luther withdraw his position. He refused and had to flee for his life. God’s free, undeserved grace was what Martin Luther lived for.
John Stott said the following:
God’s grace is willing to stoop down and lift up those who are unable to climb up by themselves. And that… is all of us!
Have you truly discovered grace? Or are you still trying desperately every day?
Written by Johan Smith