This is my offering for our Circuit Daily Devotions this week. This is a shortened version, if you want to hear the full version, you can find it here
On Sunday it will be Aldersgate Sunday, commemorating the day John Wesley’s life changed forever. The day that he had an experience of God that ‘warmed his heart’. You can read more about it here.
This is an account of his day from his diary
Wednesday May 24, 1738.
What occur’d on Wedn. 24, I think best to relate at large, after premising what might make it the better understood. Let him that cannot receive it, ask of the Father of Lights, that he would give more Light both to him and to me.
I think it was about five this Morning, that I opened my Testament on those words, “There are given unto us exceeding great and precious Promises, even that ye should be partakers in the divine Nature.” 2 Pet. i. 4. Just as I went out, I open’d it again on those Words, “Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.” In the Afternoon I was asked to go to St. Paul’s. The Anthem was, “Out of the Deep have I call’d unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my Voice. O let thine Ears consider well the Voice of my Complaint. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? But there is Mercy with thee; therefore thou shalt be feared. O Israel, trust in the Lord: For with the Lord there is Mercy, and with him is plenteous Redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his Sins.”
In the Evening I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a Quarter before nine. While he was describing the Change which God works in the Heart thro’ faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warm’d. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for Salvation: And an Assurance was given me, That He had taken away my Sins, even mine, and saved me from the Law of Sin and Death.
– John Wesley
The Message puts 2 Peter 1:4 like this:
Don’t Put It Off
3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
And the part of Luther’s Preface to the Letter of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans reads
Faith is a work of God in us, which… makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses and all our powers…
Translated by Bro Andrew Thornton, St Anselm Abbey
We are going to use a combination of these to guide our time with God as we reflect on what it means for us in our situation.
If you would like a text version of the meditation, you can find it here: 200522
The anthem is Psalm 130. This is a beautiful modern rendition of that Psalm
