Entire

Imagine a child who likes to touch hot stoves. Yes, it hurts, and yes, it leaves a scar every time, but they like to touch the stove. For a moment, it somehow feels good. A loving parent is one who comes along and tries to take the child away from the stove. In fact, a loving parent is one who drags the child away from the stove. And yet, this particular child goes back. Every time, they go back to the hot stove, insisting on touching it. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it leaves a scar. But it feels good.

Or so the child tells the parent. When the parent asks the child to leave the hot stove behind for good, the child says, "But what else would I do? I know what it feels like to touch a hot stove. I don't know what this other thing you're offering is like, this 'play outside' thing."

"But child," the parent says, "I have given everything I can to show you that you don't have to touch the hot stove. You don't have to keep hurting yourself."

"I'm just afraid to give it up."

Ridiculous? Yes (at least I hope so!). But is it any different than the ways we respond to Jesus when he offers to take us away from our sin and we still keep returning? "I know what the sin is like. It makes me 'feel good' at least for a moment. I don't know what this 'holy life' you're promising is like. I'll stay here with my sin. Yes, it hurts and yes, it leaves a scar, but at least I know what it's like."

John reminds us that Jesus came to take away our sins (3:5). He came so that we don't have to be hurt again. In fact, he came to move us away from the sin and closer to himself, to help us become more like him. "And in him is no sin" (3:5). "No one who lives in him keeps sinning" (3:6).

John Wesley taught the early Methodists the doctrine of entire sanctification or Christian perfection. By those terms, he did not mean that we ever become perfect in the sense that we never ever again make a mistake. Rather, he talked about "perfection in love," where we fall so in love with Jesus, more and more each day, that we don't want to sin any longer. We're "made perfect" not in deeds but in our heart. The more we become like Jesus, the less we will want to sin.

It's a doctrine that has largely fallen by the wayside, ignored (or only given lip service) in much of contemporary Methodism, but it's rooted in Scriptures like 1 John 3:6, quoted above. When we are ordained, we are still asked if we are pursuing sanctification and if we expect to be made perfect in this life, though this doctrine is not just for those who are ordained. But most folks are content with the "nobody's perfect" attitude...and when that becomes our mantra, we just keep going back to the hot stove. Instead, take the challenge John lays before you: grow so close to Jesus that you really do allow him to take away all your sin—entirely.

He's waiting to grow in you and in me. Are we going to allow him to?