Wrestled hard today for communion with God. Yet in all my wrestling I was also denying using the proper means unto that communion. I woke up early, I prayed, I read scripture, I meditated on songs and stories of grace. Yet in all of this I did not attend unto the Spirit of grace who alone can lift our heads to see our Savior. Owen says of this:
These things ought to be explicitly attended unto by us, if we intend our faith, and love, and duties of obedience should be evangelical. … It is, therefore, of the highest importance unto us to inquire into and secure unto ourselves the promised workings of the Holy Spirit; for by them alone are the love of the Father and the fruits of the mediation of the Son communicated unto us, without which we have no interest in them, and by them alone are we enabled to make any acceptable returns of obedience unto God. It is sottish ignorance and infidelity to suppose that, under the gospel, there is no communication between God and us but what is, on his part, in laws, commands, and promises; and on ours, by obedience performed in our strength, and upon our convictions unto them. To exclude hence the real internal operations of the Holy Ghost, is to destroy the gospel.
Now I have been enabled to approve of and delight in God’s means of saving sinners. Whereas before I was feeling sorry for myself that my own patience and efforts in trying to appropriate Christ’s blood we not availing me. Now I am glad that such were denied for in doing so, I would make a mockery of God’s way of salvation and supplant it with my own way.
