John Wesley was an ordained minister who had even sailed to America as a missionary. Yet he struggled. He wrote that he was fighting continually but not conquering, falling and rising and falling again. On May 24, 1738, he went very unwillingly to a small meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. Someone was reading Martin Luther’s preface to the book of Romans. About a quarter before nine, as the reader described the change God works in the heart through faith in Christ, Wesley said, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” He wrote that he trusted Christ alone for salvation and received assurance that his sins were taken away. He went on to preach some 40,000 sermons. Religion became a relationship.
