|
Understanding and Desiring Fellowship |
|
|
|
|
Written by Dana Candler
|
|
Thursday, 17 July 2008 |
“‘As
the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love....
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and
that your joy may be full’” (Jn. 15:9-11).
 To abide in
love is to commune continually with the One we adore. Jesus invites
each heart into this residency in divine affection with one of the most
compelling confessions of His love ever communicated. He begins with
expressing the worth of the love in which He invites us to abide
within. This love that Jesus possesses for me and beckons me to
continually immerse my heart in is only to be compared to the love that
the Father possesses for Him. It is the same love. The way that the
Father feels for the Son is the way that the Son feels for me!!!
Unfathomable reward of the ages! It is in context to this description
of His love that He beckons the heart, saying, “Stay here in My love,
and do not depart from its embrace! Abide with Me in this love divine,
and you shall know fullness of joy.”
Love is not love until it
is expressed. Communion with God is the continual expression and
experience of mutual affection between God and the human heart. It is
the embrace of Jesus Christ and the kiss of His Word upon our hearts
(Song Sol. 1:2). Communion is the exchange of love, with or without
words. It is the presence of love that leads to greater presence and
the fulfillment of desire that breaks open greater desire. Ah, the
beauty of His nearness! The One who is fairer than all the sons of men
with grace poured richly upon His lips—He is the one that pours the
warm and fragrant oil of gladness into the deep of our hearts (Ps.
45:2, 7)!! Our every fountain is enveloped in His River of Pleasures,
and our every consolation encompassed within Himself. He is the supreme
delight of the ages. He is the glorious sweetness of all eternity. This
is our Beloved. This is our Friend!
Surely anyone who has
tasted of His goodness will give testimony to the ruining nature of its
uniqueness. We are forever ruined for anything less and forever caught
up in holy pursuit of more of Him when we have but tasted a morsel of
His magnificence. David expressed invitation to the saints, “Oh, taste
and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear
Him” (Ps. 34:8-9). To describe the beauty and the wonder of this
Beloved God, the psalmist declares, “I have seen the consummation of
all perfection…” (Ps. 119:96). With the heart of one possessed and
owned by love, Paul declared, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss
for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord…” (Phil.
3:8). And Mary of Bethany spoke not with words but with action, pouring
out her life inheritance over Jesus in one act of extravagant
adoration. The fragrance that arose from that room forever and ever
gives testimony to the beauty and the worth of the Man Christ Jesus
(Mk. 14). If her devotion came with words she might have said, “Before
me is the One who is worthy of the love of all creation, and God has
graced me with one moment in time to ascribe to Him His worth.”
Every
human being has within his soul this reach. And as we move deeper in
the realm of intimacy, we have no option but to desire more and more of
the eternal pleasure of knowing Him. We find that we cannot live unless
we know and experience greater correspondence between God and our own
soul. We long to be His friends and to share the secrets of His heart.
We have known the ache of our own longing, but just as love is not love
without this longing, love is not love without satisfaction. We must
experience that which we have waited for. The feast of communion is our
desire. For surely His love is better than wine (Song Sol. 1:2). It is
better than the finest things of life, and our entire reward is wrapped
up within it. When we have tasted of the drink found within the river
of pleasures, we are abundantly satisfied with God’s fullness (Ps.
36:8). It is this that we are after, and it is for this that He has
made us to receive.
We were made to know more than longing. We
were made to taste. He designed us not just as those who would grow in
capacity of hunger, becoming spacious hearts of desire. He has made us
to receive and to experience love Himself. This is our glory. This is
our crown. We were made for the fullness of joy. “‘These things I have
spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be
full’” (Jn. 15:11). We were made to fully enjoy our Beloved Jesus, to
the fullness of our capacity. Communion with God therefore is more than
the desire for Him; it is the enjoyment of Him. It is the present tense
fellowship of superior delight.
We desire real experience in
real time. We were designed by our Creator to crave His nearness and to
only be satisfied in the true experience of love within us. For this
reason, it is not wrong that we so cry out for His presence. It is not
too much to ask that we might know Him as richly as we would dare dream
about. Oh, how much greater are His own dreams for our hearts. God
dreamed a dream of me in my creation, and that dream is larger than any
lofty vision I have ever conceived of. Much has been said about the
faithfulness of God to bring us into our purpose or our destiny. Yet
the destiny God is most determined to answer is His purpose for each
heart to know communion with His Son. He Himself will be faithful to
bring each one into that place of divine love that He has purposed for
their heart. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the
fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9).
|
