(explanation below picture)
Maps 1-3 are a general description of Spiritual formation in the Wesleyan Way.
The Normative Christian Experience involves transformation through the empowerment of 4 graces. Grace is the unmerited gift of the desire to be and the power to do the will of God. Unmerited means you can’t work for it, can’t earn it, can’t win it. Unmerited means God gives it to you because He loves you. These 4 graces are Prevenient Grace, Justifying Grace, Sanctifying Grace, and Glorifying Grace.
We start our journey with Creation, notice the stick figure, the
head of the stick figure is a triangle which represents the image of God
(Genesis 1:27). In the Garden, humanity is response-able to God, enjoying
a right relationship with God, with Others, with the Earth, and with Self.
When the fall occurs the heart
of the stick figure now has an "I" in it. This is the "I"
of egoism, or the sin nature. The result of the Fall is spiritual death,
estrangement from God who is the source of life (Genesis 2:17, Romans 3:10-12).
Jesus sacrificial death makes atonement for all of humanity (John 3:16). The
stick figure is still spiritually dead but the prison door is now open for
people to respond to God's call to reconciliation (Luke 14:23, John 1:9; Revelation
22:17). This is the starting point of the Normative Christian Experience.
Prevenient Grace: The Grace that Calls Us to
Reconciliation.
God’s love and call go out to all humanity drawing every person to
Himself (2 Peter 3:9). Prevenient grace is the grace that woos us to God, it is
also the empowerment for people to do good instead of evil. The manifestation
of prevenient grace is that a person has a conscience, the ability to sense
right from wrong (John Wesley, On Conscience, sermon #105). Now this conscience
doesn’t come with a content, a preset standard of values and virtues. The manifestation
of Prevenient grace is the ability to discern between right and wrong.
“Prevenient grace, the divine love that
surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses
toward God. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer
of understanding concerning God’s will, and our “first slight transient
conviction” of having sinned against God. This grace also awakens in us an
earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward
repentance and faith.” (Mitchell Lewis, John Wesley’s Few Words on Prevenient Grace, 12/4/2015) Prevenient
grace is the desire to be and the power to do God’s will, given to everyone,
that under the guidance of God the Holy Spirit leads us to reconciliation with
God the Father.
[John Wesley described this as being on
the porch of the house of religion. Please note Wesley’s use of the world
religion was always used in a positive sense, unlike today where the word is
associated with restrictions, rules, and regulations. Individuals can dwell on
the porch for a long time, very close, very moral, but still not know the grace
of entering into the faith. If you’re stuck living on the porch of
religion is that you are perpetually trying to clean yourself up. You get stuck
in a cycle of repentance. You keep asking to be forgiven but you never really
change. Living on the porch of religion you tend to legalistically follow all
the rules. You fanatically think you have got to keep the rules or God is going
to get you. You never feel secure. You tend to be very judgmental of others. But
find comfort in the fact that you keep the rules. The huge trap is that you can
think you’ve got it but not be inside the house of religion. You can live your
entire life on the porch. You can repent. Try to live a decent life. Do good
works to prove how good you are. But you are missing it. The Apostle Paul wrote
about this frustration:
Romans
7:15 & 7:18 & 7:21 & 7:24 (NLT) I don't understand myself at all,
for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the
very thing I hate. …I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old
sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do
right. I want to, but I can't…. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want
to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. … Oh, what a miserable
person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? ]
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