John Wesley had a way of explaining grace to which I, and many others in the Methodist Church, have related. He said that the prevenient nature of God’s grace is like like a porch that invites and welcomes us to the door of God’s household of faith. The nature of God’s justifying grace is like an open door. Jesus is that door. When we accept his acceptance, we know that our sins are forgiven; the guilt of sin is removed by his love as we enter the door. God’s sanctifying grace is what we experience as we enter into the household of faith and are welcomed with open arms as family. This grace equips and enables us to live the life of a child of God within His home for us. Throughout our lives we are transformed as we explore and live within the rooms of the home.
Today I was reading a devotional by Jill Carattini for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. I’m thinking that she must, at the least, be familiar with Wesley’s theology of grace. She wrote about bringing those who hurt to the house in which the suffering find unfailing love of the Lord. “This is the house to which we must bring them. This is the house in which we must live. …. the right side of pain can only be accessed through the house of God, a house built not by human hands, but held up by the beams of the Cross. Here our souls find a house with rooms prepared for them and a table set with room for our enemies. God has invited us into the kingdom; the doors of a great house are opened wide. And it is a house where hospitality is not a conditional sharing of personal pains, or a self-centered preoccupation with suffering, but an extension of Christ’s invitation: “Come to me, all who are weary and I will give you rest.”
All of us are homeless until we find rest in the house of God through Jesus Christ.