Communion with God

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I just finished Communion with God: Fellowship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit by John Owen. Considering it is over 400 pages of deep doctrine concerning the Trinity and that it was written by one of the foremost theologians in the Puritan era, I shouldn't feel too bad...except that it took me over 2 years!

It stretched my brain, my vocabulary, my eyes (as I had to re-read a lot of pages), and my heart. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you are looking for a challenge. Here are a few quotes to ponder:

• "It is the love of him who is in himself all sufficient, infinitely satiated with himself and his own glorious excellencies and perfections; who has no need to go forth with his love to others nor to seek an object of it without himself. There might he rest with delight and complacency to eternity. He is sufficient to his own love. He had his Son, also, his eternal Wisdom, to rejoice and delight himself in from all eternity. This might take up and satiate the whole delight of the Father, but he will love his saints also...He loves us because he will; there is, nothing in us for which we should be beloved."
  
• [In discussing Christ's sacrifice on the cross] "The curse of the law was in it, the wrath of God was in it, the loss of God's presence was in it. It was a fearful cup that he tasted of, and drank of, that they might never taste of it. A man would not for ten thousand worlds be willing to undergo that which Christ underwent for us in that one thing of desertion from God...It is impossible there should be any greater demonstration or evidence of love than this. What can any one do more?...For one to part with his glory, his riches, his ease, his life, his love from God, to undergo loss, shame, wrath, curse, death, for another..."
• "Though I am killed all the day long, all my sorrows have a bottom that may be fathomed - my trials, bounds that may be compassed; but the breadth, and depth, and height of the love of the Father, who can express?"
• "He [the Holy Spirit] knew what we were, and what we could do, and what would be our dealings with him - he knew we would grieve him, provoke him, quench his motions, defile his dwelling-place; and yet he would come to be our comforter."