Thesis 91 We must pray for Reformation.
Praying for something happens when two circumstances are met. First, we the ones praying must recognize that what we want is a good thing. No one prays to lose their job or to need a new heat pump. Second, we the ones praying must recognize that it is God who gives us every good gift. Reformations are not bootstrap efforts. If ever a man understood that, it was the leader of our last Reformation. When Luther was called to the Diet of Worms to recant his teaching he did not, at first, deliver his famous speech. Instead he asked for a day to pray about it. The next morning he took his stand. In between he prayed this for Reformation:
Almighty, eternal God! How dreadful is the world! Behold how its mouth opens to swallow me up, and how small is my faith in You!
O the weakness of the flesh and the power of Satan! If I am to depend upon any strength from this world, all is lost. O my God! Help me against all the wisdom of this world. Do this, I beg You.
The work is not mine, but Yours. I have no business here. I have nothing to contend for with these great men of the world! I would gladly pass my days in happiness and peace. But the cause is Yours, my Lord; and it is righteous and everlasting! Stand by me! O faithful and unchangeable God! I lean not upon man. It would be vain!
You have chosen me for this work. I know it! Therefore, O God, accomplish Your own will! Stand by me in the name of Jesus Christ, who will be my shelter and my shield, yes, my mighty fortress, through the might and strengthening of the Holy Spirit.
I am ready, even to lay down my life for this cause, patient as a little lamb. For the cause is holy. It is Your own. Though this world be filled with devils, and though my body, originally the work and creation of Your hands, go to destruction in this cause — yes, though it be shattered into pieces — Your Word and Your Spirit they are good to me still! It concerns only the body. The soul is Yours. It belongs to You and will also remain with You forever. God help me.
Amen.
I would argue that Reformation began not at Luther’s tower experience. Nor was it October 31, 1517 with the nailing on the church door of the 95 Theses. Neither was it with the speech he would deliver at Worms. It was the prayer, the meeting with the living God at the throne of grace. It started on this day not because of Luther himself but because of the Spirit that dwelt within him.
The leader of an earlier Reformation learned this lesson well praying for relief from the thorn in his side,
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me (II For. 12:9). May God grant us the grace to instill us an immovable certainty in our dependence on His grace.