He breaks the power of cancelled sin

Wondering through London last Thursday, I pondered purity of heart.

Sitting in Green Park, I began to read some of a sermon by John Wesley on the text ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God’. (Then a bloke came along and told me it would cost a pound to sit there, so I moved on to a less privatised seat and continued.) Bits of it made me pray out loud to God. Bits like:

And "blessed are" they who are thus "pure in heart; for they shall see God." He will "manifest himself unto them," not only "as he doth not unto the world," but as he doth not always to his own children. He will bless them with the clearest communications of his Spirit, the most intimate "fellowship with the Father and with the Son." He will cause his presence to go continually before them, and the light of his countenance to shine upon them. It is the ceaseless prayer of their heart, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory."

Surely, purity of heart has got to be the most awesomely desirable thing that there can possibly be.

Later, in Regents Park (God is often to be found there, I’ve found) I thought about sin and how it still tangles around my heart – my thoughts and words and actions. I read a bit more Wesley in which he argued (fairly inescapably) that it was possible and should be expected that a Christian should have not just forgiveness, but power over sin.

It may sound over-dramatic (but I’ll risk it) – I felt like I was peering over the edge of damnation. ‘I write this to you so that you will not sin’ wrote the Apostle John (so it has to be a possibility...) I gasped out for God to have mercy on me and heard the Holy Spirit say, ‘Read the next verse’. I looked it up and it said, ‘But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence— Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.’ And it may sound over-dramatic a second time (but I’ll risk it a second time) – I felt like I’d been saved all over again. And purity seemed a possibility - because when you're forgiven much, you love much.

He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.
- Charles Wesley