Methodist Desire

Last month I mentioned the Methodist General Rules. Briefly summarized they say:
1. Do no harm
2. Do good
3. Attend to all the ordinances of God

This month let's consider the first rule in more detail. In context the full language is: "By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced, such as…"

You immediately noticed there's no verb in that sentence. By "doing no harm" and by "avoiding evil" what are we accomplishing? Wesley's claim is that becoming a Methodist is ridiculously easy (my language, not his). All that's required is a "desire to flee the wrath to come," or, put another way, a "desire to be right with God," "to be saved." Becoming a
Methodist was easy. Remaining a Methodist was more complicated. For Wesley a Methodist would "continue to evidence their desire for salvation." This is where the "by" comes in: they evidence their desire for salvation by doing the three things laid out in the General Rules.

Do you notice the importance of desire in this way of thinking? The Methodist desires "to flee the wrath to come;" the Methodist desires for "salvation." Wesley and the Methodists understood salvation as more than a simple binary state. If salvation were just a binary state we'd speak as some do as if people were either "saved" or not, or more crudely, headed to heaven or to hell. For Wesley and the Methodists there was a binary aspect to salvation, but the full biblical picture of salvation included much more than that.  In the Bible we see Jesus calling people to follow him, to become his disciples (that is, his apprentices), to take up his way of life, to give their allegiance to God's Kingdom.

Let's try the marriage analogy. A person is either married or not. That's binary. A wedding is the normal way to enter the state of "being married." The point, however, is not to have a wedding. The point is to live in the state of marriage, to live in a new and life-long relationship with the person you've married.

Maybe you've known someone who entered the state of marriage with a person but later came to a point where they no longer "evidenced a desire to be married." That's the kind of thing Methodists are thinking about. Our living in a certain way (a way described by the General Rules) shows that we continue to desire salvation, to live in relationship with God.

What is your life showing about your desire for salvation?

1 Corinthians 15:58
Rev. Richard Heyduck