November 6

Read: I Corinthians 12:31 — 13:13

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

The Wesleys On Christian Perfection

“The Wesley brothers had their differences when it came to defining Christian perfection -­ John declaring that Charles set it so high ‘as to effectually renounce it; Charles declaring that a perfection requiring qualification was a rather strange sort of perfection! Nevertheless down deep solid unities meet. To each of the brothers the justified Christian is called to sanctification entire and complete; called to inward and outward holiness, the removal of the inbred corruption of the nature, and to the fullness of love made perfect.

“‘By perfection,’ says John, ‘I mean the humble, gentle, patient love of God and man ruling all the tempers, words, and actions, the whole heart and the whole life… I mean loving God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves, I pin all its opposers down to this definition of it.’ Along side of this we may set the definition of Charles:

A heart in ev’ry tho’t renewed, And full of love divine; Perfect, and right, and pure, and good: A copy, Lord, of Thine.

“To Charles Wesley, the sanctified life is marked by the hunger for more and more and yet more of the heaven of love in his heart. As John put it, ‘Indeed, what is it more or less than humble, gentle, patient love!… and so I advise you to read frequently and meditate upon the 13th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians. There is the true picture of Christian perfection’ ” (T. Crichton Mitchell).

Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven, to earth come down; Fix in us Thy humble dwelling, All Thy faithful mercies crown!

— Charles Wesley