|
Communion with Christ is something we have to keep up constantly. Ours is a relationship of moment-by-moment dependence upon him. It can never become occasional or intermittent.
I think we are often mistaken on this point. We are inclined to think that we can receive life from Christ in bulk installments. We suppose that Bible reading, fellowship with others and prayer delivers a supply of spiritual power that we can tap into whenever we need it.
But life in Christ doesn't work that way. We don't receive life-giving grace from our Lord in packaged units. It flows directly from a personal relationship with him. And that's why it is so essential to keep on close terms with him always. Our relationship with Christ has to be constantly renewed and unceasingly enjoyed.
James Stewart, a popular preacher in Scotland early last century, wrote this about the need for constant communion with Christ. "There is no sure defense against that grim and tragic loss of reality and zeal and faith except in a daily renewed surrender of life to Christ, nor is there any easy alternative by which to evade the cost of this rigorous and surgical self-discipline and commitment. There is no bypass road round Calvary." Preaching, p. 168
He went on to warn preachers against relying on earlier experiences of grace and blessing at the expense of keeping their hearts alive on a daily basis. "Here is the ultimate secret of authoritative preaching, " he wrote, "- a first-hand knowledge, never inert and static, never dependent merely on remembered episodes, shining and decisive God-encounters long ago, but always dynamic and developing, always with insight added to insight, and wonder piled on wonder, from the moment when you first gird on your armour for the fray, until the last sermon is preached and the long campaign is over and your work on earth is done" (p. 190).
No one spoke more urgently of the need for keeping the heart aflame than the seventeenth century Puritan pastor Richard Baxter. Feel the passion of this challenge delivered to fellow preachers in his famous book, The Reformed Pastor: "Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise… When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely feel when you have been much with God: and that which has been most on your hearts, is like to be most in their ears... if we abound in faith and love and zeal, how would it overflow to the refreshing of our congregations and how would it appear in the increase in the same graces in them. O brethren, watch then over your own hearts: keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith, and love, and zeal: be much at home, and be much with God" (pp. 61-2).
What more needs to be said? Constant communion with Christ is the key to an effective ministry.