Col 1:19 NKJV For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell

Have you experienced the fullness of God’s free love in Christ? Do you know Him as the Bread of Life and the Fountain of Living Waters John 6:35? Do you know that He will never leave you or forsake you Hebrews 13:15? Do you know that He loves you with an everlasting love and that by His lovingkindness He has drawn you to Himself Jeremiah 31:3? Do you know that He is at work in you making you complete through the blood of an everlasting covenant Hebrews 13:20-21?

The chaste Bride never lets her heart run after another. She finds all the beauty in Christ she can daily and feeds her soul on Him. This is true communion.

Is it pardoning mercy you desire? He calls you to forsake your ways and all your unrighteous thoughts and return to Him for He abundantly pardons Isa. 55:7. Is comfort you desire? He tells us in Titus, in His kindness and free superabounding love that He has poured out to us in Christ, He gives us His Spirit abundantly. We shall never thirst again when we drink deeply from the rivers of living water. Is it abundant grace that you desire? Then pray as Moses did in Exodus 33:14 “if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.” God gives Himself to us fully and freely.

Christ gave us His Holy Spirit to work holiness in us. He is the Spirit of Holiness Titus 3:5. Christ gave and sent His Spirit that we might be sanctified made chaste. That He might teach our hearts to sing the Song of Christ and not our own song, just as the Shulamite sang the Song of all Songs. Yet, without even a thought to what we are doing at times, we grieve the Spirit. We are not a chaste Bride when we run against the Holy Spirit working in our lives. He is at work for our advantage and without His work, we cannot know God and we block His work with unholy living.

We also violate our chastity to Christ by seeking comfort in the things of the world. The Spirit provides us joys unspeakable and we run after the things of the world. The things that are perishing. When we do, we are forsaking Christ. Our daily work is to crucify our hearts to the things of the world and the things of the world to our hearts Owen says that we are to do this that we “might not have living affections to dying things: that we would gladly look on the world as crucified, a dead thing, that has neither form nor beauty”.[1] If we find ourselves taking comfort in what we can see we should cry out to Christ with Asaph in Psalm 80:3 “Restore us, O God; Cause Your face to shine, And we shall be saved”!

Moses said to God in Exodus 33:14 “if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.” God gives Himself to us abundantly. He gave Himself to Moses abundantly. He said to Moses “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” “My Presence” the pre-incarnate Christ went with Moses.  Goodness poured out to Moses in Christ, comfort in rest. How sweet is our God? Paul tells us in Romans 5:17 that He gives us an abundance of grace and He adds in 5:20 that God’s grace superabounds over our sin.

I must say, I can scarcely take in all the beauty that is offered to me in Christ. It might be said that we do not think enough about what we’ve been delivered from, but I must ask do we think about what a life we’ve been delivered into? It is more than a person can take in when you think about the overwhelming unfathomable love and beauty of the person and work of Christ and know that we are found in Him and can commune with Him now in all His beauty. What He did, all He did, He did for us not one thing was done for Himself. Gal 4:4-5 NKJV – “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons”. He “tasted death” for you and me, for His Bride. Heb 2:9 NKJV – “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone”. Owen says, “But this is exceeding clear and confessed, that Christ in His suffering and oblation (sacrifice), had His intention only upon the good of His elect, and their acceptation with God; suffering for us, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” 1 Peter 3:18.[2] “He sends them His Holy Spirit, to quicken them John 6:63, to cause them that are “dead to hear His voice” John 5:25, and to work in them whatever is required of them, to make them partakers of His righteousness and accepted with God”.[3] Does that take your breath away? Does it cultivate in you an overflowing heart of love for God?

As I look at my remaining sin, I am reminded daily, over and over, that without God my corruptions will do me in! Wednesday evening we were at Josh and Jennifer’s and Madelyn pulled out her new bible and this is what she read to me Isa 5:20-21 ESV – 20 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” From the mouth of babes, the truth is sent forth, for me to be reminded that this is what we have been delivered from and that we have been brought into sweet union and communion with God.

I pray you will take in the “whole Christ” today. Don’t just settle for a “half Christ”. Don’t settle for salvation and the thought that one day you will go to heaven as the end of Christ’s work for you. Learn today to live in communion with the Triune God and take Him in, all the way in, learn to squeeze out every drop of beauty and goodness that you can find in Him and then share that beauty with those around you. It’s joy unspeakable!

I love you ladies and I’m seeking to live upon Christ with each of you!

[1]John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, Edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Publishers, 2007), Page 266

[2] John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, Edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Publishers, 2007), Page 296

[3] John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, Edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Publishers, 2007), Page 297