Reformed Theology

 

 

Reformed Theology

What is it?

Let me state up front

I have my limit.

 

I am not too sure

How salvation works

Since I am neither a Calvinist

Nor Arminian expert.

 

What I do know

Is that salvation works,

I have the witness of the Spirit

Thus, I need no expert.

 

This is not a boast;

Certainly not in myself,

I am totally dependent on Christ

For my spiritual health.

 

It is he that assures

Through the Holy Ghost

That one is saved by grace

With no grounds to boast.

 

If any is in doubt

About God’s saving grace

Just remember troubled one,

Christ took our place.

 

If you have the witness

Of the faithful Holy Spirit

Then the saved life will show

As a daily habit.

 

 

A transformed life

Not of reformed theology

And not of Calvin or Arminius-

Sorry, no apology.

 

It may be healthy

To debate between the two

But both had to be born again

Like me and you.

 

The Nicodemus-lesson

Is relevant to all,

It is a God-given privilege

To receive God’s call.

 

You must be born again

Is the command given,

By faith one accepts Jesus Christ

And that one is forgiven.

 

One is not reformed

Rather, one is transformed

And to the image of the Christ

That one is conformed.

 

Romans 8:29

 

For whom he did foreknow,

He also did predestinate

To be conformed to the image of his Son,

That he might be the firstborn

Among many brethren.

 

“Among many brethren”

Here the elect is the focus;

The first born among the many

Being the resurrected Jesus.

 

The model, if you please,

Not that he was born again

But that we should be like him

And function in his name.

 

If this is reformed theology

I don’t even know,

These days it’s not to theologians

But to the Word I go.

 

Jesus is the Living Word

And the focus of the written,

God’s elect comprises all them

Whose sins are forgiven.

 

 

Neither Calvin nor Aminius

Matters much to me,

My desire is to be like Jesus

Whose face I shall see.

 

And when that time come

I shall see him just as he is,

Now, I see through a glass darkly

But in him I move and live.

 

Stewart Russell © May 16, 2024

 

 

Unconditional Kindness

 

 

Luke 6:35

 

But love ye your enemies,

And do good, and lend,

Hoping for nothing again;

And your reward shall be great,

And ye shall be the children of the Highest:

For he is kind unto the unthankful

And to the evil.

 

Ephesians 4:32

 

And be ye kind one to another,

Tenderhearted,

Forgiving one another,

Even as God for Christ’s sake

Hath forgiven you.

 

Unconditional kindness

Is what this poem is about,

Something, to be quite frank,

I have not yet worked out.

 

Like the verses above,

I understand what they say,

But if I truly search myself

This is really not my way.

 

Oft I am quick to criticize

Especially a fallen brother,

How could he? I ask myself,

To me it’s quite a bother.

 

It is quite natural I find

To jump on that fallen one

And to become so judgmental

That all my mercy is gone.

 

As in the emboldened verses

 This ought not to be so

But it’s easier said than done

Which you and I both know.

 

  

Love towards an enemy

Is the subject of the first:

It’s the Christian kind of behavior

We ought daily to rehearse.

 

Do good and lend to our enemies

Hoping for nothing again,

The fact that it’s an enemy

Undoubtedly will cause us pain.

 

But God is kind to the unthankful

And to them that do evil,

So too, the children of the Highest,

Though oft a bitter pill.

 

And if we must for an enemy,

How much more a brother?

Since God in Christ has forgiven us,

We must forgive one another.

 

Unconditional kindness this is:

It can’t be achieved in self,

It’s a sign of Christian maturity

And a measure of spiritual health.

 

Only today I was listening

To the report of a fallen brother,

All of it posthumously so

Since the brother is no longer.

 

I felt especially for his wife

Who has to live with all this

And the believers who hammer her

Provide a lengthy list.

 

 

In the mirror of God’s Word

How do I measure myself?

Right about now, I must admit,

An “F” for spiritual health.

 

I feel especially convicted

Though not in this particular case

But at other times in the past,

When I deemed a brother a waste.

  

Some sins we easily forgive

But others we surely do not,

Some we deem very permissible

While some we classify as rot.

 

So, my brother and my sister,

There’s much we have to do,

If these two scriptures mean anything,

We must surely change our view.

 

Stewart Russell © April 29, 2021