Communion with God Quotes

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”
― John Owen, Communion with God

“The love of God is like himself – equal, constant, not capable of augmentation or diminution; our love is like ourselves – unequal, increasing, waning, growing, declining. His, like the sun, always the same in its light, though a cloud may sometimes interpose; ours, as the moon, has its enlargements and straightenings.”
― John Owen, Communion with the Triune God

“Believers obey Christ as the one whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect, and unable to abide in God's presence. Therefore they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God.”
― John Owen, Communion with God

“Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.”
― John Owen, Communion with the Triune God

“So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.”
― John Owen, Communion with God

“By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with God. He is light, we darkness; and what communion has light with darkness? He is life, we are dead—he is love, and we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us?”
― John Owen, Communion with God

“Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation, than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“in the meantime praying the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has, of the riches of his grace, recovered us from a state of enmity into a condition of communion and fellowship with himself, that both he that writes, and they that read the words of his mercy, may have such a taste of his sweetness and excellencies therein, as to be stirred up to a farther longing after the fulness of his salvation, and the eternal fruition of him in glory.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“the soul frequently eye the love of the Father, and that under these considerations, — they are all soul-conquering and endearing.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“And truly, for sinners to have fellowship with God, the infinitely holy God, is an astonishing dispensation.9”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“he knew we would grieve him, provoke him, quench his motions, defile his dwelling-place; and yet he would come to be our comforter.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“not to terrify and affright their souls with it, but that a due sense of the evil of it may be kept alive upon their hearts.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“It is the daily exercise of the saints of God, to consider the great provocation that is in sin,”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“of electing love; and proposes the consideration of that love as a motive to holiness,”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“In remission of sin and imputation of righteousness does it consist; from the death of Christ, as a price, sacrifice, and a punishment, — from the life of Christ spent in obedience to the law, does it arise.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“He must not only have a negative righteousness, — he was not guilty of any thing; but also a positive righteousness,”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“Adam had no right to life because he was innocent; he must, moreover, “do this,” and then he shall “live.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“When will the Sabbath be past, that we may exact all our labours?” — when our delight and refreshment lies in earthly things, — we are unsuitable to Christ.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“such a thought is cruel as the grave. The worst thoughts that, in any fear, sin desertions, they have of hell, is, that they shall not enjoy Jesus Christ.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“He looks about him every way, and fears every thing that may deprive him of it.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“When once the soul of a believer has obtained sweet and real communion with Christ, it looks about him, watcheth all temptations, all ways whereby sin might approach, to disturb him in his enjoyment of his dear Lord and Saviour, his rest and desire.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“hell itself is but the filling of wretched creatures with the fruit of their own devices.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“How much more glorious are the tender affections, mercies, and compassion of the Lord Jesus unto believers!”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome!”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“that God alone may be preferred. And this is the soul’s entrance into conjugal communion with Jesus Christ as to personal grace, — the constant preferring him above all pretenders to its affections, counting all loss and dung in comparison of him.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“in the next verses that communion of theirs is at large set forth and described. I shall briefly observe four things therein:— (1.) Sweetness. (2.) Delight. (3.) Safety. (4.) Comfort. (1.)”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“Communion with the Father is wholly inconsistent with loose walking. “If”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him.”
― John Owen, Communion With God

“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” say the sinners in Zion. And, “I knew thou wast an austere man,” saith the evil servant in the gospels. Now, there is not any thing more grievous to the Lord, nor more subservient to the design of Satan upon the soul, than such thoughts as these.”
― John Owen, Communion With God