Going On
Leviticus 19:1-19,
Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32,
33-37, 38-39, 43-44, Matthew 5:48, Philippians 1:6, 9-11,
Philippians 3:12-14
We have a challenging topic for this week – “going on…” Going on to what? As John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist movement) would say, we need to be “going on to perfection.”
I know in my past, I would say that we could never be perfect in this life. That is true, we will never be perfect from the standpoint of never sinning. However, John Wesley believed that we needed to continue moving in that direction and he believed that we could get there. However, he did not define perfect as being sinless. He defined perfect as having an internal motivation for loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and also loving our neighbor as ourself.
John Wesley also believed that we don’t start out our Christian life as “perfect,” but that we have to continue to move toward perfection through the power of the Holy Spirit in what Wesley called “sanctifying grace.” Sanctifying grace is the grace that continues to move us toward perfection, toward holiness throughout our Christian life.
So as you start the readings for this week, keep an open mind. Understand two things:
· Jesus calls us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
This does not happen all at once but we are called to keep moving in that direction
