Nearest and Dearest Fellowship

So shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

While we are here the Lord is with us, and when we are called away we
are with Him. There is no dividing the saint from His Savior. They are
one, and they always must be one: Jesus cannot be without His own
people, for He would be a Head without a body. Whether caught up into the
air, or resting in paradise, or sojourning here, we are with Jesus; and
who shall separate us from Him?

What a joy is this! Our supreme honor, rest, comfort, delight, is to be
with the Lord. We cannot conceive of anything which can surpass or even
equal this divine society. By holy fellowship we must be with Him in
His humiliation, rejection, and travail, and then we shall be with Him in
His glory. Before long we shall be with Him in His rest and in His
royalty, in His expectation and in His manifestation. We shall fare as He
fares and triumph as He triumphs.

O my Lord, if I am to be forever with Thee, I have a destiny
incomparable. I will not envy an archangel. To be forever with the Lord is my
idea of heaven at its best. Not the harps of gold, nor the crowns
unfading, nor the light unclouded is glory to me; but Jesus, Jesus Himself, and
myself forever with Him in nearest and dearest fellowship.