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1 Daily Fellowship with God

Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. —1 John 1:3

he first and chief need of our Christian life is fellowship with God. The divine life within us comes from God and is entirely dependent upon Him. As every moment I need afresh the air to breathe, and as the sun every moment sends down afresh its light, so it is only in direct, living communication with God that my soul can be strong. The manna of one day was corrupt when the next day came. I must every day have fresh grace from heaven, and I obtain it only in waiting directly upon God Himself. Begin each day by tarrying be-fore God and letting Him touch you. Take time to meet God. To this end, let your first act in your devotions be stilling yourself before God. In prayer or wor-ship, everything depends upon God taking the chief place in your attention. I must bow quietly before Him in humble faith and adoration, speaking within my heart: "God is. God is near. God is love, long-ing to communicate Himself to me. God, the Al-mighty One, who works all in all, is even now waiting to work in me and make Himself known." Take time until you know God is very near. When you have given God His place of honor, glory, and power, take your place of deepest lowli-ness and seek to be filled with the spirit of humility. As a creature, it is your blessedness to be nothing so that God may be all in you. As a sinner, you are not worthy to look up to God. Bow in self-abasement. As a saint, let God’s love overwhelm you, and bow down lower still. Sink down before Him in humility, meekness, and patience. Surrender to His goodness and mercy. He will exalt you. Take time to bow very low before God. Then, accept and value your place in Christ Je-sus. God delights in nothing but His beloved Son, and can be satisfied with nothing else in those who draw near to Him. Enter deep into God’s holy pres-ence in the boldness which the blood gives, and in the assurance that in Christ you are well-pleasing to God. In Christ you are within the veil. You have access into the very heart and love of the Father. This is the great object of fellowship with God—that I may have more of God in my life, and that God may see Christ formed in me. Be silent before God, and let Him bless you. This Christ is a living Person. He loves you with a personal love, and He looks every day for the personal response of your love. Look into His face with trust until His love really shines into your heart. Make His heart glad by telling Him that you do love Him. He offers Himself to you as a personal Savior and Keeper from the power of sin. Do not ask, Can I be kept from sinning if I keep close to Him? Instead ask, Can I be kept from sinning if He always keeps close to me? Then you will see at once how safe it is to trust Him. We have not only Christ’s life in us as a power, and His presence with us as a person, but we have His likeness to be wrought into us. He is to be formed in us so that His form or figure, His like-ness, can be seen in us. Bow before God until you get some sense of the greatness and blessedness of the work to be carried on by Him in you today. Say to God, "Father, here am I for You to work in me as much of Christ’s likeness as I am able to re-ceive." Then wait to hear Him say, "My child, I give you as much of Christ as your heart is open to receive." The God who revealed Jesus in the flesh and perfected Him will reveal Him in you and per-fect you in Him. The Father loves the Son and delights to work out Christ’s image and likeness in you. Count upon it that this blessed work will be done in you as you wait on God and hold fellowship with Him. Our likeness to Christ consists chiefly in two things—His death and His resurrection. "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resur-rection" (Romans 6:5). The death of Christ was the consummation of His humility and obedience, the entire giving up of His life to God. In Him we are dead to sin. As we sink down in humility and de-pendence and entire surrender to God, the power of His death works in us, and we are made conform-able to His death. Thus, we know Him in the power of His resurrection, in victory over sin, and in all the joy and power of the risen life. Therefore, every morning, "yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead" (Romans 6:13). He will maintain the life He gave and bestow the grace to live as risen ones. All this can only be in the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you. Count upon Him to glo-rify Christ in you. Count upon Christ to increase in you the inflowing of His Spirit. As you wait before God to realize His presence, remember that the Spirit is in you to reveal the things of God. Seek in God’s presence to have the anointing of the Spirit of Christ so truly that your whole life may every mo-ment be spiritual. As you meditate on this wondrous salvation, as you seek full fellowship with the great and holy God, and as you wait on Him to reveal Christ in you, you will feel how necessary the giving up of all is to receive Him. Seek grace to know what it means to live as wholly for God as Christ did. Only the Holy Spirit Himself can teach you what an entire yielding of the whole life to God can mean. Wait on God to show you in this what you do not know. Let every approach to God and every request for fellowship with Him be accompanied by a new, very definite, and entire surrender to Him to work in you. "By faith" must here, as through all Scripture and all the spiritual life, be the keynote. As you tarry before God, let it be in a deep quiet faith in Him, the Invisible One, who is so near, so holy, so mighty, so loving. Let it also be in a deep, restful faith that all the blessings and powers of the heav-enly life are around you and in you. Just yield yourself in the faith of a perfect trust to the blessed Holy Trinity to work out all of God’s purpose in you. Begin each day thus in fellowship with God, and God will be all in all to you.