How can I experience true intimacy with God?

It is a great thing when the soul gets beyond the fact of its deliverance, wonderful and blessed as that is, and lays hold by faith upon the person of the Deliverer; for it is in being occupied with Him, in the having to do with Himself personally, and addressing Him in happy, assured confidence of heart as one now known and delighted in, that positive and increased blessing of an inexhaustible character consciously accrues to the believer. And the more I value the immensity of the blessing I now possess, the more surely should I desire to make the direct acquaintance of the One who has conferred so wonderful a boon upon me at the incalculable cost of the sacrifice of Himself. How much, dear reader, do you and I know of personal intimacy with Him, of Jacob's well at Sychar, and of Martha's cottage at Bethany, now the Man enthroned in glory? How much of that individual intercourse with Himself, without which each recurring day should be to us a cold and cheerless blank, and will be, unless we are drawing from earthly springs and human cisterns? Alas! how many habitually grieve Him by accepting the benefit bestowed, while exhibiting pronounced indolence or indifference as to the Benefactor, depriving themselves thus of that peculiar joy which fills the heart for the first time in that thrilling moment when we are conscious of what has never dawned upon us before - that we are personally known to Christ and He to us! Nor can we doubt that it is equally a time of exceptional joy to Him when a soul in the bloom and beauty of its new-born spiritual life is brought thus fully and blessedly into conscious acquaintance with. Himself, to enter upon an intercourse as intimate as the relations of the Father to the Son, and as lasting as God's eternity. It is the occasion on which the believer can say, and say it unequivocally, "Well, now I know Him, my Saviour! Not merely do I know what He did for me when He was here; but I know the One who has left the scene, the Man now in glory, and have been so brought into the secret of His own presence to have immediate contact with Himself, that, indeed, I know Him more intimately than I know any earthly relative, and am known of Him infinitely better than by any such!"

I put it solemnly to every one here; I ask you, If we sat down to talk together about the Lord Jesus Christ, how much would you be at home with that subject? If I were to sit down and talk to you about His service, you would be at home; but if I were to sit down and talk to you about Himself, would you be at home there? Would that be a theme that your heart could go over — the various perfections of the One whom His grace allows us adoringly to call our Friend? It is solemn for every one of us. What then would be your answer if I were to say, Let us talk about this blessed One, who left the throne of God and came down here to become a man, that He might manifest His Father's love to a wretch like me — that He might lay hold upon this poor, miserable heart of mine, and win it for Himself? If He has won your heart and mine, we can surely speak about the One who has thus become our common object. I am often amazed at how little there appears to be of that blessed, simple, personal intimacy with that blessed One; that personal knowledge of Christ which delights in Him as a person, not in a mere doctrine about Him. Very little more is known of Him than if He were a mere doctrine; there is no sense that He is a living Man upon the throne of God in heaven — a living Person who can fill every desire of the heart, and whom I know as God in a man; that is the wonderful part of it. I know God in Jesus. How else can I know God? I can only know God in that blessed One, beloved friends; that is the wonderful part of it. True man, very man, really man, yet the mighty God. But it is God in man. "This is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." It is the only way in which I can know God; I see God in Christ; I know God in that man, and I am brought to God in Him. What a blessed thing it is! That alone secures me, and nothing but that can secure me. I say it to you affectionately — you are not safe, you are not secure, there is no garrison in your heart, until Christ is the alone simple commanding One that occupies its throne. When He does, and He is there personally, then you have the true motive, and the real spring, and the real power for walk and testimony for Him here on earth. In figure, it was this which Jonathan lacked. I do not wish to be the least one-sided; I admit that his devotedness was true and beautiful so far as it went; but it never rose beyond the lower order. It was deficient in this respect, that what was kept back was the very thing David's soul would have desired. That is what Christ is looking for; it is your heart — in other words, yourself; therefore says the Holy Ghost, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."

It is sweet, again, to get back to what it was at first, and to see God able, as it were, to come down to the "tent door in the heat of the day." God came in the cool of the day to Paradise (Gen. 3), but it was in vain, as far as communion was concerned - Adam hid himself away. There should be a going of the soul to God in a far more intimate way than to any one else. Communion with saints is precious; but I must have intimacy of communion with God above all; and communion of saints will flow from communion with God. Then the soul, getting into this wonderful place of communion with God, takes His likeness. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." While there is dependence upon God learnt by need, still there is a deeper thing, a forming into the image of God by the soul's getting near to Him, and finding its delight in Him. This was, in a sense, true even of Christ Himself. The ways of the Father were reproduced in His ways down here, through the communion which He had with Him.

God has given us His truth that our thoughts may be fashioned like unto His own. This is to enjoy communion with Him. Our previous study, on standing and state, naturally prepares the way for the consideration of this blessed theme of realized fellowship with God, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9). He, who has thus so richly blessed us, desires to have us in living, happy communion with Himself, and this is the instinctive desire of every renewed soul. By nature and practice we are alienated and an enemy to God by wicked works, but when grace has wrought in the soul—when new birth has taken place—at once there springs up a yearning for fellowship with the blessed One whom now we address by the Spirit as “Abba Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). Now this communion is not a human thing. Man in the flesh can have no fellowship with God. It is only known and enjoyed in the power of the Spirit. The direct means for its maintenance are the Word of God and prayer. In the Bible, God speaks to me. In prayer, I speak to Him. I use the word prayer here in its widest application; not merely as offering petitions, but as lifting up the heart to God in praise likewise.

Communion with God is a real thing, in which He pours into the soul, in a greater or less degree, the deep joy of His presence - of that favour and perfect love in which He communicates with the soul, revealing Himself - and gives, by His presence, the happiness of a relationship, in which no breach is suspected, nor thought of, in which the soul lives. It is more than faith, though founded on it; other than the certainty of salvation, though the crown and seal and realisation of this. The abstract certainty, the consoling certainty, that my Father loves me, and will not, nay, cannot, do otherwise, is another thing from happy intercourse with this love, with no consciousness of anything else, or of anything in the way of that enjoyment. The certainty of love in God constitutes the bitterness of the sense of the loss of the enjoyment of it, for I speak only of saints here. The Spirit's seal to the truth assures of God's love; and Christ, if we fail, intercedes for us. But the Holy Ghost being the spring of the enjoyment of it in the heart is another thing. The one - the foundation, it is true, of all - assures that God is for us: the other is God in us, filling the heart with joy, with communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

“I dwell … with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” God promises His presence and fellowship. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples: “If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). Connecting these two verses we could say that where our love to the Lord manifests itself in obedience to His Word in the right attitude of mind and heart we will experience this personal communion with the Father and the Son. “And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:3-4).

"I dwell... with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." God promises His presence and fellowship. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples: "If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him" (John 14: 23). Connecting these two verses we could say that where our love to the Lord manifests itself in obedience to His Word in the right attitude of mind and heart we will experience this personal communion with the Father and the Son. "And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" (1 John 1: 3, 4).

There is first the sense of your need of Him; when you have this you will cleave to Him INSTINCTIVELY as a babe cleaves to its mother's breast, but you will also cleave to Him INTELLIGENTLY as you grow in the knowledge of His resources. But there is more than what He can be for you, there is what He is to you. You will abide in Him HABITUALLY when you know His love as greater than all other loves, Himself better than the brightest and best below. So the 9th verse would answer your question. The secret of constant abiding in Him is simply the knowledge of His love. "As the Father has loved Me" that is the measure of it — "so have I loved you: continue ye in My love."

Having settled the question as to your vital oneness with Christ, and that it is no mere matter of profession with you, though the subject of the Lord's words is really our responsibility as having professed identification with Him, you must next inquire as to what it is you are thinking about first and most. Is it your fruit-bearing or Christ? If it is your fruit-bearing it is self-occupation, and as a consequence the fruit will be both poor in quantity and quality. But if you have learnt what He means when He says, "Without ME ye can do nothing," and so have turned wholly to Him — the Source of your life, strength and energy — fruit will not be lacking. You abide in Him when you realize that you can't do without Him, and when you know that all you need is in Him. Two words cover it. He is INDISPENSABLE to you, and He is ALL-SUFFICIENT. To abide in Him is to cleave to Him with purpose of heart, as Acts 11:23 says, but it is more than that, for there it is a question of grace from Him, here it is life in Him and the grace which is the strength of that life. In abiding in Him you stay where grace has put you. When you came to Him at first in all your need as a sinner, you turned away from every other hope and helper and from all your own efforts to secure blessing. Then salvation and life for you were in Christ alone; now, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Col. 2:6-7). Go on as you began; as you found all you needed in Him for salvation, now find all you need in Him for fruit-bearing. Derive from Him, draw upon Him, cleave to Him, so that His life may find expression in you in fruit-bearing.

But here the Lord insists on more — the necessity and the importance of dependence on Him, of intimacy with Himself. This is to abide in Christ; and His word is, "Abide in Me, and I in you." It is not sovereign grace to the sinner, but His call to the disciple; and hence His abiding in us, as a matter of daily communion, depends on our abiding in Him. "As the branch cannot bear fruit from itself unless it abide in the vine, so neither (can) ye, unless ye abide in Me." Nothing simpler than the fact outwardly, nothing surer in our experience than that so it is inwardly. He, and He only, is the dwelling-place for the soul in this world of snare and danger, in this desert where no water is. Make Him the resource, make Him the object; and the sap, as it were, flows without hindrance, and fruit is borne. Without Him no teaching avails, and all religious excitement fails; bring Him in, confide in Him, and, no matter what the difficulty or the pain or the shame, no matter what the opposition or the detraction, He sustains the heart, and fruit-bearing follows.286 Apart from Him we can do nothing; with Him, all things. So said one who had learnt it well, "I have strength for all things in Him that giveth me power" (Phil. 4:13).

It seems scarcely needful to remark that the relation of head and body serves quite another purpose in Scripture, and must be kept wholly distinct. Heavenly grace forms that one body by the one Spirit united to the glorified Head; and therein we do not hear of rending, maiming, or cutting off. It is the church viewed as the object of Christ's unfailing love, till He present it to Himself in glory. Responsibility on earth under Divine government is another thing; and this, not the unfailing heavenly relationship of the Church, is taught by the Vine and its branches. Hence Calvinistic devices are as uncalled for as the Arminian assaults they are meant to avert. No one doubts that profession may fail. Life is eternal for all that; and in Christ there is nothing short of eternal life; but this is not the teaching of the Vine, any more than the unity of the body. It is a pity that learned commentators do not read with faith and care the Scriptures they essay to comment on.