A Heart Strangely Warmed

On the evening of May 24, 1738, a discouraged Anglican clergyman walked reluctantly to a small Moravian meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. John Wesley had already failed spectacularly as a missionary in the colony of Georgia. He had crossed the Atlantic to convert Native Americans and returned unable to convert himself. His rigid disciplines, his fasting, his exhausting works of charity — none of it had given him peace. He was a minister who privately doubted whether God actually loved him.

That night, someone read aloud from Martin Luther's preface to the book of Romans. At about a quarter to nine, Wesley later wrote, he felt his heart "strangely warmed." He received an assurance that Christ had taken away his sins — even his — and saved him from the law of sin and death. It was not a reward for decades of religious effort. It was a declaration of love that arrived while he sat in a chair, doing nothing but listening.

Only after that night did Wesley's world-shaking ministry begin — the open-air preaching, the Methodist movement, the transformation of England's spiritual landscape. The assurance came first. The work followed.

This is the pattern the Almighty established at the Jordan River. Before Jesus preached a single sermon, cast out a single demon, or healed a single leper, the heavens tore open and the Father spoke: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." Identity before activity. Belovedness before achievement. The voice of God does not wait for our résumé.