This little chapter contains a big idea. I’ve saved for last what’s most important for the art of abiding, this secret of abiding. I don’t mean secret in the sense of something hidden. I mean it in the sense that Paul does in Philippians 4:12, “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger,” that is, the unexpected, unfamiliar way.
A name you’ve seen repeated throughout this book is John Owen, and that’s because he’s one of the writers who has thought best and most about communion with God. In his book Communion with God, Owen makes a distinction between union with Christ and communion with God that remains so helpful for us today.
On the one hand, our union with Christ is fixed and unalterable. It does not rise and fall with our faith or the quality of our lives, with what we’ve done or failed to do. Our union with Christ is as certain as Christ’s irrevocable love, which does not wax or wane. It is as sure as Christ’s grip on our lives and his promise that nothing can snatch us from his hand (John 10:28).
On the other hand, our communion with God does change and vary. It is affected by our faith and what we choose to do or not do. To be clear, the love of God for us does not change, but our experience of his love does. Jesus says, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). Jesus is saying that the way we respond to God will affect our experience of him. If we trust God and obey him, then Jesus promises he will “manifest” himself to us. He will make himself more apparent. Jesus couldn’t be clearer that we will know God better by obeying him more. 1
Our response to God is not the root of his love; it is the fruit. But the fruit is where the nourishment drawn from the root manifests in sweetness and beauty. And the presence of fruit will give us greater assurance that our lives are rooted in him: “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3–6).
Now why is this distinction between union and communion so important for us? Because we naturally fall into the trap of assessing the security of our union (Does God really love me?) on the strength of our communion (How am I feeling? How am I doing?). And we get seduced into thinking it’s up to us to keep it up. Abiding then becomes a chore, a box to check, a bar to clear—“Read your Bible!” comes across like “Clean your room!” “Pray more” sounds like “Do more.” It then becomes easy to feel frustrated and think, But I’m not getting anything out of this. So why bother?
Don’t you see how this is like standing up in your sailboat and blowing on your own sail? Not only will you never move forward this way, not only will you exhaust yourself, but how could you ever rest? How could you ever have any assurance that God loves you if the ground of your confidence is your own frantic blowing?
Thank God that the basis of our acceptance is found outside of us in our union with Christ! Christ is always faithful, even when we are not (2 Tim. 2:13). We change, but he never does. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). One of the Puritan writers put it memorably, “Your heart is not the compass Christ saileth by.” 2
Union is the secret to communion. Because only when you are absolutely “sure” and “certain” (see Heb. 11:1) that you are loved by God, that you are safe in Christ, will you want to pursue the one who already loves you best.
For example, when you don’t read or pray, God is not like a disappointed schoolteacher, scolding you for failing to complete your assignment. Rather, God is your patient and loving Father. He desires communion with his child so much that Owen says nothing grieves God more than our “hard thoughts” about him, that is, our unwillingness to believe that God really is this tender and kind toward us. Why does nothing grieve God more? Because he knows “how unwilling is a child to come into the presence of an angry father.” 3
This is how much God desires communion with you, that what grieves him most is not our sin but our refusing to believe that he is so kind, and that he desires to be with us so much more than we do with him. If our soul only knew this, “it could not bear an hour’s absence from him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.” 4 Owen is saying that embracing your union with Christ is what moves you into greater communion with God.
To draw together these chapters on abiding, your irrevocable union with Christ—this is the wind in your sails. And his unflagging grace is always blowing. He is not only the wind (this is where our metaphor fails); he is also the one who enables us to do our part to draw the sail, and he is the one who feeds and nourishes us for the journey. “Apart from me you can do nothing,” including the work of abiding.
And to gather together the themes of the four basic questions we addressed in part 3: when you know that you are not your own (chapter 7); when you know that Christ sets the horizon for your life (chapter 8); when you know that pursuing him gives purpose to each new day, not in fear of what you lack, but in the freedom of what you already have (chapter 9); when you know that Christ not only sets the horizon and charts the path but is himself in the boat with you (chapter 10); and when you know that your heart is not the compass he sails by but rather his own constantly faithful heart, then the means of abiding become means of resting and refreshment.
Union with Christ is the secret to communion with God.
You are drawing near to the one who is already near, singing praises to him who is already singing over you (Zeph. 3:17). You are blowing on the embers of God’s white-hot love for you so that the truth of it might catch fire that day. But most of all, you are consoled that even when you don’t feel its warmth or see its light, the fire is still burning, inextinguishable (Luke 3:16; John 1:5).
Union with Christ makes the art of abiding a duty of delight.