If you’ve been around Methodists for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the phrase “heart strangely warmed.” It comes from the story of John Wesley, who had been wrestling with doubt about his faith and even his own salvation. One evening, while listening to a reading from Martin Luther’s preface to Romans, something shifted. In that moment, Wesley felt assured of God’s grace and described his heart as “strangely warmed.”
That must have been some reading. It’s commonly believed that this is the passage he heard:
     “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times. This confidence in God’s grace and knowledge of it makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing  with God and all His creatures.  And this is the work of the Holy Spirit in faith.  Hence a man is ready and glad, without compulsion, to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, in love and praise to God, who has shown him this grace.”
Every time I come back to those words, I’m struck by how different they feel from the way faith sometimes lives in me. Not always living. Not always daring. Sometimes careful, sometimes a little tight—more about managing than trusting.
What Wesley heard that night wasn’t just a clearer explanation of faith. It was permission to stop trying to hold everything together on his own. Faith wasn’t something he had to prove; it was something he could trust. And that shift changed the energy of his whole life.
I keep coming back to that phrase, “without compulsion.” Because if I’m honest, a lot of what I do—even good, meaningful things—can carry a quiet sense of obligation. Show up because I should. Serve because it’s needed. Keep going because that’s what faith does.
But Luther describes something freer than that—a confidence in grace so real that love begins to move on its own. Not forced. Not squeezed out. Just flowing.
I find myself wondering what it would look like for that kind of faith to take deeper root in me. Not louder or flashier, just more grounded. The kind of trust that lets me risk a little more, hold a little less tightly, and remember that God’s grace is not something I’m constantly trying to secure, but something I’m already standing in.
I don’t think this is something we manufacture. Luther is clear—it’s the work of the Spirit. And in my experience, it grows slowly, often quietly. But I do think it’s something we can begin to notice: moments when love comes more naturally, when fear loosens its grip, when showing up feels less like pressure and more like response.
The words Wesley heard that night didn’t just inform him—they changed him. They moved him from a performative faith into something personal, intimate, and alive.
Oh that we, too, might know that kind of grace.
Oh that we, too, might serve and praise God without compulsion.
Let it be.
Grace and peace,
Pastor M@