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Newton on Fellowship with other Christians and God Himself

Newton on Fellowship with other Christians and God Himself

Last updated on: July 23, 2026 at 4:35 pm by Adrian Warnock

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Newton on Fellowship with other Christians and God Himself 2026-07-23T16:35:44+01:00 Adrian Warnock

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I’ve been thinking just a little bit about how little we value real communion with God today. Well, let’s speak personally about this, how little that I value truly knowing God. How often do we all spend our time with other people devoted purely to leisure or idle conversation, rather than to help one another to know God. I want to share with you a letter that John Newton wrote about this. He wrote it after one of his many visits to Yorkshire, where he had spent time with his friends and in churches seeing what God was doing there. This letter is a challenge to us today, to really aim to find God in each other, but also in our time alone with him. But as you’ll see, even John Newtondid not find this easy. So there is some encouragement in that too.

I hope that letter will be helpful to you today. It certainly encouraged me. There are a couple of lines in this that stand out, most of all is, “everything that’s wrong with me may be summed up in this one weakness, a tendency to wander from him.” There’s a thought for us, and I hope it’s a hopeful thought.

I hope this will be an encouragement to renew that struggle to truly know God. It is so important for us to realize that as Christians, we must become ever more dependent on God. That is our need more and more, even as Newton explained. We often think of these great men of God as being people who somehow were different to us, better than us. And yet, he was just the same as you and me. He struggled the same way that you and I do. And he longed to know God more, the same way that perhaps you and I do. I think it’s very powerful. So here it is.

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Listen to the audio on Substack or wherever you get your podcasts.

Since my return from Yorkshire, I have had but little free time to reminisce on all I have seen, and heard, and taken part in, for almost the last two months. These opportunities have now come to an end for a season. My main fellowship must be with Him who is always near. Oh for grace to improve this high privilege aright! Then I will have no need to regret the reduction in conversations with other people.

The Lord has led me to many pleasant streams. But I long to rejoice in the freedom to draw near to the fountain. I believe that my heart has the same desire of those who said, “we want to see Jesus” (John 12:21, HCSB). When we come to heaven, no doubt we will find great pleasure in communion with the “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23, ESV). But the main delight will be to gaze on Him who, for our sake, was crowned with thorns, and nailed to the cross.

Everyone else would only be poor company if He was not there. I find it similar on earth. I delight in His people. But they can only benefit me as much as I am enabled to see Him in them, and to feel His presence in my own soul.

My whole goal and desire is found in this short sentence, “to walk with God” (Genesis 6:9). I aim to “keep my eyes always on the LORD” (Psalm 16:8, NIV), to hear His voice in every person, in every means of grace, religious service, and provision. And to keep Him in mind as my Portion, Sun, Shield, my Strength, Advocate, and Saviour.

Everything that is wrong with me may be summed up in this one weakness, a tendency to wander from Him. This is all too often the case with me. I don’t know how or why. Through mercy, I have to an extent been freed from the love of this present evil world. The desire of my heart is towards God. I consider His loving kindness to be better than life (Psalm 63:3), and value all his instructions concerning everything to be right, just, and good. I do not even wish for permission to allow any rival into my heart. He richly deserves it all, and I am willing and long to be His alone, and to be completely conformed to Him.

Yet I still feel the effects of my depraved nature. Despite all my struggles against inward and outward evil I am too often carried away from the place of simple faith and dependence. The spiritual experience of a Christian is not hard to describe. Neither is it hard to speak at length about it. But to feel what we say, to sit under the shadow of the tree of life, to abide in Christ, to feed on Him in my heart by faith with thanksgiving, I find is a rare accomplishment, easily lost, and not quickly regained. I know enough of it to make me long for more, and yet so little, that I have often had reason to cry out, “my weakness, my weakness!” and to lie low in the dust before God.

A lingering root of pride and self-righteousness often springs up and interrupts my peace. Indeed, as to the reason for my hopes and acceptance, I am mercifully kept from doubts and fears. I trust in Him who has formed a perfect righteousness for my justification, and has stretched out an everlasting arm for my salvation. I see the honor of the divine attributes reliably secured. God is not only merciful and good, but faithful and just, in saving an unworthy believing sinner.

But what I want is not only to expect heaven in the future, but to experience a heaven begun below, to live up to the privileges of the Gospel, to have increased desire for holiness, and those longings to be abundantly answered.

I want more of the influences of the Holy Spirit under his various roles, as the Teacher, Life-giver, Comforter, and Sealer of the people of God. I want to know more clearly what the apostle desired for his friends, in those two comprehensive prayers:

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places . . .

That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians, 1:13–20, 3:16-21, NASB).

How little do I understand about that height, depth, breadth and length, he speaks about! How faint are my ideas of the glorious hope of His calling, and the exceeding greatness of His mighty power! But let God be blessed for the little I have. I trust it is a pledge of more. He has made me hunger and thirst for righteousness, and He has said I will be filled (Matthew 5:6). I remember the time when I was complacent about these things. The words of my heart were, “Depart from me.” Yes, I resisted His Spirit, despised His mercy, and “treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy” (Hebrews 10:29, NLT). But, oh, God says, “I was found by people who were not looking for me. I showed myself to those who were not asking for me.” (Romans 10:20, NLT)

He passed by me, and called me to live. He saved me in spite of myself. He would not give me up. He appeared in the time of my distress and “broke the jaws of godless oppressors and plucked their victims from their teeth” (Job 29:17, NLT), and demanded “that a tyrant let his captives go” (Isaiah 49:24, NLT). And ever since, how good has He been to me! How gently He has led me! How often he has restored me when wandering, revived me when fainting, healed my brokenness, supplied my needs, heard my prayers, and lifted up a standard against my enemies, when they have been coming in on me like a flood!

Even now He is with me, He is never weary of doing me good, and I believe He will be with me, even to the end. Until at last He brings me home to His kingdom to be near Him forever. From all this, arises a large part of my grief, to think that I should be so cold, and barren, and unfruitful, despite such amazing displays of undeserved love. O Lord, touch the rock, and cause the waters to flow (Exodus 16:6). Soften and inflame my heart, that I may at last become your disciple indeed.

I trust you will continue to prize the means of grace, and to watch against every appearance of evil. Take heed in case you are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Beware of that worst of evils, spiritual pride. Pray earnestly for a deep sense of your own insufficiency. Let us beware of trusting in any other power than the power of Christ received continually by faith. I know fleshly minds will abuse this principle, and so they will every other doctrine of the Gospel. But let it be enough for us that He who knows us best has said, “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, NKJV).

Adapted into modern English from Newton, J. and Cecil, R. (1824) The Works of John Newton. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., pp. 28–31.

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About Adrian Warnock

Adrian Warnock

Medical doctor · Published author · Patheos writer since 2003

I have always lived within sixty miles of London, UK where I studied, worked and worshipped for thirty years. I began writing for this Patheos blog in April 2003, making it one of the longest-running individual columns on the Christian Internet. My writing here, on Substack, and in my books is influenced by my medical training, eight years of working as a psychiatrist in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), eighteen years working in medical research in the pharmaceutical industry, twenty-five years of serving as a pastoral leader in a growing multicultural church, and a difficult decade of lived experience with chronic illness, including blood cancer, and the unexpected losses, including early retirement, that resulted.

Together, these all shape a biopsychosocial-spiritual approach which I first wrote about on Patheos in 2013. This model offers us hope, compassion, and healing in all life’s challenges. This holistic approach is based on the idea that all truth is God’s truth.

At times, since my illness, my faith has been faint. I wondered if this was the end of my story. I was not strong enough to live for Jesus the way I wanted to. I could not change myself. And then hope reminded me: The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Just not all at once. Healing takes time. Compassion and patience sustain us over a lifetime of change. I aim to approach suffering with hope and compassion, and address tough questions including:

What does Jesus’ resurrection mean for you?

Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything (Crossway, 2010; 2nd edition, Amazon, 2025)
Why is change so difficult? What causes the resistance?

The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Hearts (Amazon, 2026)
Why is change so slow? How does grace lead us over a lifetime?

Amazing Grace: How Faith Grows in the Human Heart (Amazon, 2026)
How do you become a Christian? Can you know if you really are one?

Hope Reborn: How to Become a Christian and Live for Jesus Co-authored with Tope Koleoso (Christian Focus, 2014)

Qualifications

I qualified with an MB BS from the University of London (equivalent to an MD in the United States), hold postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry (MRCPsych) and pharmaceutical medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed), and took theological training courses run by Newfrontiers.

Connect With me

Substack: adrianwarnock.substack.com (the best way to ask questions)
Twitter/X: @adrianwarnock
Facebook: Adrian Warnock
Email: [email protected] (I may not be able to respond to every message)

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Singing and Sighing, Hallelujahs and Suffering, the Treble and the Bass: John Newton on handling life’s challenges

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