General Bramwell Tillsley

Early in the morning, 20 people loaded up on 15 passenger vans and made the 4-hour trip to hear General Tillsley (R) speak on Holiness and The Fullness of Love. They weren't disappointed. Many good insights.

The Salvation Army is a holiness church. What's that mean? Let me give my explanation and others are welcome to contribute. We get saved. We are excited - we want to live this new life, we want to change the world. After a while, though, we realize that we are still making the same mistakes we did before we got saved. We still struggle with ourselves, our thoughts, our desires, our behavior. What's up with that? Aren't we new creations?

Indeed, we are. But as we begin to realize that we can't do it on our own, we start turning things in our life over to God. One painful thing at a time. It becomes less about us and more about Him. Slowly but surely. Eventually, we reach a point (and everyone has a different point and a different "crisis" that brings them to this point) where we throw our hands up and say "NONE of us, Lord. ALL of you!"

God steps in here and, in a moment of grace and sanctification, he is able to have access to our heart, which we have held onto for so long. He takes the old dead heart, shriveled up but still kept in the jar by us and gets rid of it - replacing it with a heart of his own, one that has His Torah written on, one that enables us to love people through Him, one that walks in His strength and not our own.

We will still struggle with temptations - the temptations didn't die, we did - and now, instead of inclining towards them, we incline towards God. As my friend, fellow revolutionarie Captain Amy Reardon calls it, "habitual submission." We want what God wants more than what we want.

"We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Doctrine #12, The Salvation Army

As General Tillsley pointed out, this new heart shows itself by living out 1 Cor 13 - the Love Chapter. Each small aspect points to Jesus - and his love for each of us.

More to come . . .