The Father and the Son with Us.

Is it the habit of our souls to turn instinctively to the Father and the Son, speaking to them in quiet and holy intimacy, knowing that they are with us? No doubt the measure and character of our communion depends on the measure of our love to Christ, and on the extent of our obedience to His will. Such communion is the fruit of a known relationship, brought into the heart by the Holy Spirit, Who is also the power for this blessed and heavenly communion.

While here on the earth, The Son spoke of the Father being in Him (John 14:10), and also of the Father being with Him (John 16:32). We can see something of the import and distinction of these immense truths. The Father being in Him, He was the perfect expression of all that the Father is, so that He said, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." But when He speaks of the Father being with Him, it is for the comfort and joy of His heart in the moment when all would forsake Him. With ourselves, we are indwelt by God, so that His blessed nature and character might be manifested in us in all our ways down here; but we have this blessed promise that the Father and the Son will dwell with us, so that we might know the comfort and joy their company affords.

The practical effect of our living in the light of this precious promise is immense. Could we allow anything inconsistent, in our lives or communications, with the holiness of God if we lived in the consciousness that the Father and the Son dwelt with us? In the 16th Psalm we see a Man living in the consciousness of Jehovah being at his right hand (v. 8). This caused Him to trust in God, to find His delight in the saints, to refuse identification with the world, to find His portion in the Lord, to bless the Lord from Whom He received His counsel, to set the Lord always before Him, to have perfect confidence in Him even with death before Him, to find fulness of joy and eternal pleasures in God's presence in another world. Will not the consciousness of the presence with us of the Father and the Son have a similar effect upon our lives?