p. 11 | Communion With God by Edward Clifford

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Oct 22, 1903

Communion With God

By Edward Clifford

If I were asked what is the thing which the devil and the world and the flesh try hardest to prevent Christians from getting, I should reply, “Conversation with Christ.” I say this from my own experience, and from observation of all the Christians I have ever known. A quiet, unhurried speaking to Jesus alone, and hearing his replies,—that is what every Christian needs every day, and what many get only once a month, or more seldom still, or never. When did you last so talk with Christ? Do stop and answer this question to yourself before you read on.

It is so easy to go to services, and to listen to prayers, and to join in them. It is easy to sing to him, or to pray to him with others, or to think that we are doing so because we “feel refreshed” by it. But what if it should turn out that we were really only talking or singing for other people and ourselves to hear? Communion services are not necessarily conversations with Christ, nor is preaching or teaching or working for him. You may be a most religious person, busy all day long about God’s matters; you may give time, money, and thought to him, and yet be assured of the fact that if you never converse with him alone for some time, perhaps an hour each day, you will certainly get thoroughly wrong, and that when you and he meet, you will see all your work crumble away, and suddenly wake up to the fact that you and your Saviour are strangers.

It will be a horrible surprise to you that nothing should remain of all the work on which you spent your life; for “without me ye can do nothing” had been forgotten by you. He meant that

you should have talked to him continually about everything you did, and should have always been conscious of his sympathy and oversight; but instead of that you talk only to men and women, and make shift with their sympathy, advice, and help. He meant you to have asked his counsel about that money trouble. He would have arranged it all; but you only asked your lawyer, and it turned out badly. He meant you to have told him your anxieties about your son, and he would have ended them; but you only consulted your friend, and matters got worse. He meant you to have asked him for light about that doctrine which you could not understand; but you went to a book to get it explained, and you became more uncertain than before. He would have satisfied you. He meant you to have confessed to him that secret sin, and he would have forgiven and cleansed you; but you confessed it to your clergyman or minister, and it torments you to this hour. He meant you to have asked him how much money you were to give away; but you settled that yourself, and settled it wrong. He would have been your counselor about the profession you chose, the situation you accepted, the servant you engaged, the books you read, the friendships you formed; but you chose other counselors, and all has been a failure. May the Holy Spirit strike the scales from your eyes now, and may you take Christ now as your personal Friend and Counselor!—Edward Clifford.