Do You Expect to be Made Perfect in Love in this Life?
All the healing, provision and deliverance for which I now pray is just a brief preview of the great age to come when Jesus appears in power and majesty. Every manifestation of the kingdom in this age is temporary, local and incomplete. Wesley taught that Christians should expect to be made perfect in love. For Wesley, perfection in love is synonymous with sanctification and necessary for true holiness. Inward love brought the outward forms of obedience and godliness to their completion. Perfect love is a divine gift, not a human achievement. Like justification, sanctification is a work of God’s grace operating through divinely empowered faith. Wesley acknowledged that no human being could expect to be made perfect in knowledge, and so could err in even in love. Wesley also recognized that bodily weaknesses endure in this life, again leading to missteps. And finally, Wesley taught that Christians could, by their own actions, lose this second work of grace. Wesley did no...