When we sin, our union with Christ is not in jeopardy. But our communion is. It is possible for believers to have more or less of God’s favor. It is possible for us to have sweet fellowship with God, and it’s possible to experience His frown – not a frown of judgment, but a “for-us” frown that should spur us on to love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24).
The Pleasure of God and the Possibility of Godliness by Kevin DeYoung taken from The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung, copyright 2012, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, p. 74.
The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p. 138-139. All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian bookstores everywhere. Get this book!
Mutual communion is the soul of all true friendship; and a familiar converse with a friend hath the greatest sweetness in it…[so] besides the common tribute of daily worship you owe to [God], take occasion to come into His presence on purpose to have communion with Him. This is truly friendly, for friendship is most maintained and kept up by visits; and these, the more free and less occasioned by urgent business, or solemnity…. The more friendly they are… We used to check our friends with this upbraiding. “You still [always] come when you have some business, but when will you come to see me?” …When you come into His presence, be telling Him still how well you love Him; labor to abound in expressions of that kind, than which…there is nothing more taking with the heart of any friend.
The Puritan Idea of Communion with God, in Puritan Papers, Volume 2, 1960-1962, P&R, 2001, p. 114-115. Used by Permission.
