The Real Needs of the Soul

In my denomination, the EFCA, there is a question that shapes our ethos, that was foundational to the birth of the Free Church. "How goes your walk?" was a question that the Free Church founders asked one another regularly. It was a question that led to the formation of churches free from state control in Scandinavia, churches in which personal piety and holiness were emphasized. It is a question that continues to shape the ethos of the EFCA today. It is a question that points to the real needs of the soul. The writer of Hebrews tells us that without holiness, no one will see the Lord. The apostle Paul tells us that God chose us and saved us for holiness. The apostle Peter argues that salvation, holiness, and joy are inextricably tied together in God's plan for His people.

Some of us need to have our sinfulness proclaimed to us -- we need to be taken by the lapels and shaken so that we wake up. We find that type of proclamation in the Puritans. Some of us need patient, systematic instruction on pursuing holiness. This also we find in the Puritans. But some of us are all too aware of our sins. The words of Isaiah 64:6 ring in our ears, reminding us that our best deeds are no better than polluted garments before the holiness of God. Jeremiah 17:9 is an indictment that pierces the soul: I know that my heart is deceitful and sick. And the danger for those who are sensitive of conscience is that they will despair and give up. Yet even this concern we find addressed in the Puritans, particularly in Richard Sibbes' marvelous little book The Bruised Reed.

Yet even holiness points us towards something greater. The point of holiness, according to Hebrews 12:14, is to see the Lord. We see in I Peter 1:8 that the ground of our joy is that even though we have not seen Jesus, we love Him and believe in Him. Paul opens up so we can see his heart beating inside, and as we read what he writes in Philippians 3:8-11, if our hearts are not similarly quickened, then perhaps we have not the life of God in us:

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Knowing God in Jesus Christ. A consuming passion for knowing Jesus. This brings us back full circle to where we started.

The Puritans understood what human beings really need: holiness and joy that come from knowing God in Christ. That is what you and I really need. And the Puritans can be our guides if that is what we would seek to address.