Perfect Love – The Highest Calling
Christian perfection is the great goal of the Christian life, in John Wesley's thinking, as we saw yesterday, and it's possible now, not only when we die. Perhaps this will make more sense to you when you hear Wesley's words from his sermon entitled On Perfection: "The perfection I teach is perfect love; loving God with all the heart, receiving Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, to reign alone over all our thoughts, words, and actions. The Pharisees placed their religion in doing—doing so many things, or refraining from so many things. Christ placed His in loving—loving God and neighbour."
Of course Wesley is basing this on Jesus' own words about the greatest commandment, to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength..." and to "Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31)
The Essence of Holiness
Christian perfection, then, is simply a carrying out of these two commands – to love God and love people. For one who has been perfected, their great purpose in all they do is to fulfill those two commands.
Remember that this does not mean a perfect performance of these things. Maybe this is why we tend not to like the term "perfection", and Wesley didn’t either, because in our minds perfect means something that can't be improved upon. But this is not what scriptural perfection is, in the New Testament sense. It's a perfection of loving intention, not a perfect performance.
Perfect Heart, Imperfect Performance
In fact Richard S. Taylor, a great Nazarene theologian, put it beautifully in his book A Right Conception of Sin: "Perfect love in the human heart is entirely compatible with a thousand infirmities in judgment and mistakes in practice; and we could draw a multitude of illustrations from the relationship between an innocent, adoring child and a parent to prove this truth. How perfect the love may be in attempting to please, yet how faulty the performance! And which is necessary to please the parent—a perfect performance or a perfect heart of obedience and love?"
You see his point. When a child makes a gift for their parent, like a drawing or a card, is it a perfect work of art? Certainly not. But was it made with a perfect heart of love? Of course. And this is what we mean by Christian perfection – a heart that truly loves God and seeks to please Him, even though it doesn't always get things right.
Is it possible to be this committed to God? I believe so. I believe that, with your faith in His power to sanctify, you can receive the gift of a cleansed and changed heart, which loves God and people above all.
Maybe you never really asked God for the ability to live this way. Maybe you have enjoyed his forgiveness, but still rebel against Him now and then, doing things that aren't in love for Him or others, and you've never really considered that He could free you from that.
He wants to forgive you, but He also wants to fill your heart with perfect love! I pray that your life and mine will be truly marked by perfect love as we submit to Jesus and believe in His ability to hold us in holiness – not following the rules like the Pharisees, but doing all we do in love, like Jesus did.
