Personal Reform

Do you ever get in a mode of evaluating how you are doing, and consider what adjustments to make personally? I sense that this is common for people. In school, evaluations came in all kinds of ways. At work, it happens too. But people also do self-examinations in their personal lives. We often experience that it is not merely for effectiveness but happiness as well.

In the Christian life, our spiritual journey with Christ, this kind of self-check is ongoing. Twentieth-century theologian, H. Richard Niebuhr of Yale Divinity School, a noted ethicist, upheld that a deep mode of “perpetual reformation,” corporate and personal, is important within the Christian ethos. On this journey, Christ is forming us day by day. The call of the prophets and the cries of the psalms are filled with the convictions that we are not where we could be, and that we should be in cooperative transformation under the grace of God.

Every passage of scripture in the coming Sunday lessons lines up with this theme. In the Gospel of Mark, chapter ten, the “rich young man” comes to Jesus as a true seeker, wanting to know what he must do to be on the right track. Peter too asks for clarification about his grade in following Jesus. The passage from the Letter to the Hebrews 4:12-16 introduces a gripping image of how the Word, is a living, active, sharp, double-edged sword that can get right into us and sort out what we are made of at any time in our progress in Christ.

Take special note here of how the passages from Amos and the Psalms guide us toward the hard work of our own reconstitution, and God’s merciful work of redirection, enabling us to order our steps away from evil, and apply our hearts to wisdom:

Seek good and not evil, that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be with you, just as you have said.
Hate evil and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. (Amos 5:14-15)

Psalm 90

12        So teach us to number our days *
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

13        Return, O Lord; how long will you tarry? *
be gracious to your servants.

14        Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; *
so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.

15        Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us *
and the years in which we suffered adversity.

Notice the sense of urgency in both passages. The prophet, Amos, is urging the people of God to conform to God’s ways. This is to avert the disaster coming their way. The Psalmist urgently asks for God’s help. In verse thirteen we ask God not to delay, and to bring grace to bear. One translation puts it this way: “Come back, O Lord! How long?—and have pity on Your servants.” Just before that, verse twelve, we ask help to be mindful of how few days we have, and to not waste days on foolishness, but to turn our hearts toward wisdom.

The collective impact of the Sunday Scriptures moves us powerfully to be in a process of reform to give our full attention to God as the Core of our lives. We come to understand that God is involved with us, working on us, and wants us to work hard too. All of this is to put us on a path of deep rejoicing and gladness all the days of our lives.