If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord will NEVER abandon you. He has promised the believer in Hebrew 13:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (NKJV).I recall, years ago, hearing a preacher speak on this very subject of a believer feeling the Lord had abandoned him. He made a comment that I never forgot, “If you sense a distance between you and the Lord, who moved?” We have just seen that the Lord will never forsake those who have trusted in Him as their Lord and Savior, so the obvious answer to that question is, “The believer is the one who has moved.” That is to say, the believer has drifted away from communion with the Lord and is no longer sensing His presence with him. We must now ask, “What is it that causes the believer to drift away from the Lord?” There may be many reasons but due to limited space we will limit our answer to two.

1) NEGLECT of God’s Word and prayer. The Lord speaks to us through His Word and we speak to Him through prayer. That is what “communion with the Lord” is and if we fail to listen to Him or speak to Him we will never sense His presence with us. The Lord exhorts us to desire fellowship with Him through His Word in 1st Peter 2:2, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” By reading and meditating on His Word we grow in the knowledge of the Lord. This is confirmed by 2nd Peter 3:18, “But grow in the grace and knowledge or our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This, dear brothers and sisters, is true “communion with the Lord” and surely as we spend time with Him over His Word we will sense His presence with us. The Lord also expresses His desire for us to pray to Him in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  By praying, our hearts experience His peace and in verse 9 the apostle tells us that “the God of peace will be with you.”  But if we neglect His Word and prayer we will indeed “drift away from the Lord.” When this occurs, He hasn’t abandoned us; we have abandoned Him.

2) DISOBEDIENCE to God’s Word. In John 14:21 Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (NKJV). He went on to say in verse 23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” The Lord is expressing His desire to have fellowship with those who love Him and He emphasizes that there must be OBEDIENCE TO HIS WORD if we are going to experience God’s presence in our lives. This is NOT teaching us that God will abandon us if we don’t keep His Word; it is teaching us that God can’t make His presence known to us unless we are walking in obedience. We have an example of this in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6. In verse 14 God commands His children, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” He goes on to say in verse 17-18, “Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” Again, God is speaking to His children in these verses and commanding them to OBEY HIS WORD. If they do, He will be a Father to them. This does NOT mean they become His sons and daughters by obedience to His word, but that they will experience the joy of fellowship with their Father when they obey Him, which means they will sense His presence with them.  (207.3)  (DO)