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Music For the Soul
Devotional: November 19th

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COMMUNION WITH GOD

If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin. - 1 John 1:7

The " two" whom the prophet Amos 3:3 would fain see ’walking together are God and Israel; and his question suggests not only the companionship and communion with God which are the highest form of religion, and the aim of all forms and ceremonies of worship, but also the inexorable condition on which alone that height of communion can be secured and sustained. Two may walk together, though the one be God in Heaven and the other be I in Manchester. But they have to be agreed thus far, at any rate, that both shall wish to be together, and both be going the same road.

The two may walk together. That is the end of all religion. What are creeds for? What are services and sacraments for? What is theology for? What is Christ’s redeeming act for? All culminate in this true, constant fellowship between men and God. And unless, in some measure, that result is arrived at in our cases, our religion, let it be as orthodox as you like; our faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ, let it be as real as you will; our attendances on services and sacraments, let them be as punctilious and regular as maybe - are all " sounding brass and tinkling cymbal." Get side by side with God. That is the meaning of the whole, and fellowship with Him is the climax of all religion.

It is also the secret of all blessedness, the only thing that will make a life absolutely sovereign over sorrow, and fixedly unperturbed by all tempests, and invulnerable to all " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Hold fast by God, and you have an amulet against every evil, and a shield against every foe, and a mighty power that will calm and satisfy your whole being. Nothing else, nothing else will do so. As Augustine said, " O God! Thou hast made us for Thyself, and in Thyself only are we at rest." If the Shepherd is with us, we will fear no evil.

There may be, and therefore there should be, running unbroken through a Christian life, one long, bright line of communion with God and happy inspiration from the sense of His presence with us. Is it a line in my life, or is there but a dot here, and a dot there, and long breaks between? The long embarrassed pauses in a conversation between two who do not know much of, or care much for, each other are only too like what occurs in many professing Christians’ intercourse with God. Their communion is like those time-worn inscriptions that archaeologists dig up, with a word clearly cut and then a great gap, and then a letter or two, and then another gap, and then a little bit more reading, and then the stone broken, and all the rest gone. Did you ever read the meteorological reports in the newspapers and observe a record like this: "Twenty minutes sunshine out of a possible eight hours"? Do you not think that such a state of affairs is a little like the experience of a great many Christian people in regard to their communion with God? It is broken at the best, and imperfect at the completest, and shallow at the deepest. Oh! rise to the height of your possibilities, and live as close to God as He lets you live, and nothing will much trouble you.

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