"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." vs.9
No great man/woman of God is without his/her flaws. Every great man/woman is a product of their time who inwardly wrestles with their own demons, decisions, and disappointments. Though John Wesley has continued throughout the last 15 years of my life to serve as an example of the Faithful Christ-Following journey, he isn't by any means exempt from such a statement. His marriage was a wreck. He often offended others with the boldness of his theological doctrine, including a close friend by the name of George Whitfield. He often leaned a bit toward what we might call "legalism." He was by no means "perfect." However, he was faithful.
Coming out the background that my wife and I emerged from, a lifestyle of addiction and broken living, we were seeking in the Christian tradition someone or somewhere that took this journey seriously. We recognized our weaknesses and had witnessed first hand our propensity to make disastrous choices. We needed to be a part of a community that would take us deeper. We yearned for friends that would lovingly and encouragingly hold us accountable. We found that among those rooted in the theological and practical heritage of John Wesley.
For all Wesley's quirks, following Christ was an urgent matter. It was a matter that ought to consume every part of our lives. The journey of faith was one of complete and constant submission to the Spirit of God and the Lordship of Christ. There were no compartments in the life of Wesley's followers. One didn't have a faith compartment that sat alongside other compartments like work, family, leisure, money. It was the whole of life, every nook and cranny of our existence, brought before the Lord for his glory that constituted the pursuit of the Holy Life. It was a life that loved deeply, God and neighbors, that added the practical meat to the theological bones of Wesley's ways.
This wasn't a private matter.
Wesley recognized the necessity of community for the faithfulness of the Christian journey. We need others that will push us beyond the surface. Consequently, he organized his followers into small bands that would gather weekly for deep and probing questions that sought to consistently reorient lives to the will and work of God. Because this journey of Lent is a probing "beyond the surface" journey, I have included several of the questions that these men and women would ask one another weekly.
Read through these questions. Reflect on their impact. Consider what the result might be of negotiating these questions weekly with other brothers and sisters in Christ. Take note of the deep seriousness invested in this journey by Wesley and his followers. Allow their urgency to infect your life.
1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than anyone? In other words, am I hypocrite?
2. Am I honest in all my acts or words, or do I exaggerate.
3. Do I confidentially pass on to others what was told me in confidence?
4. Am I slave to dress, friends, work or habit?
5. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
6. Did the Bible live in me today?
7. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
8. Am I enjoying prayer?
9. When did I last speak to someone about my faith?
10. Do I pray about the money I spend?
11. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
12. Do I disobey God in anything?
13. Do I insist on doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
14. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
15. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
16. How do I spend my spare time?
17. Am I proud?
18. Do I thank God I am not as other people, much like the Pharisee and Publican?
19. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disregard, if so, what am I going to do about it?
20. Do I grumble and complain constantly?
21. Is Christ real to me?
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