The Heart Strangely Warmed

THE HEART STRANGELY WARMED

I received a new hymnal this week in the mail and in looking through it, found some powerful readings that were such a blessing. This reading is from the pen of preacher/hymn writer, John Wesley (1703-1791):

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistles to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. 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.

I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more special manner despitefully used and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. But it was no long before the enemy suggested, ‘This cannot be faith; for where is you joy?’ Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginnings of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes gives, sometimes withholds them, according to the counsel of His own will.

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptation, but cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and He “sent me help from His holy place.” And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting, with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; praise God, now, I was always conqueror! – May 24, 1738

For me, this was just another reminder that we are in all these things, “we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us!” (Romans 8:37) Hallelujah! – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s KESWICK

God WORD for TODAY: Psalm 18-19; Acts 20:17-38

Think About This: “The work of a true convert is not done. He (and she) finds a great work to do and great wants to be supplied. He (and she) still sees himself/herself to be a poor, empty, helpless creature who still stands in great and continual need of God’s help. He/she well knows that without God he/she can do nothing. After a true conversion, the soul is increasingly aware of its own impotence and emptiness. It is still aware of its universal dependence on God for everything. A true convert is aware that his grace is very imperfect and that he/she is very far from having all that he/she desires. Through conversion, new desires are produced in him/her that he/she never had before…So he/she still has plenty of business at the throne of grace: if fact, his/her business there increases rather than diminishes.” Jonathan Edwards

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