"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

To be occupied with thoughts about God as He is revealed in the Scriptures will increase our faith. Much that passes current for faith today is either sentiment or presumption. Faith must be based upon a true revelation of God, and we have this revelation in the Bible. The way to have a strong faith is to have a great and mighty God. Nobody's faith can be stronger than he believes his God to be. I cannot have strong faith in a God who, I think, is weaker than men. If my God is weak, my faith, of necessity, will be correspondingly weak. I cannot have much faith in God if I believe He is being defeated on most battlefields. I cannot have much faith in God if I believe He is trying and failing, if I believe He is doing the best He can to accomplish as much good as He can and to save as many as He can. But if, like Job, I believe that "What His soul desireth, even that He doeth" [JOB 23:13 ] , then with Paul I can say that "He is able to do exceeding ...

"Every one that loveth H im that begat loveth H im also that is begotten of H im." - I JOHN 5:1 [KJV]   Where there is love to Jesus, there will be love to those who are His by redemption, His by regeneration, and His by personal possession. The more, too, that we see and the more that we know of the beauty and blessedness of the Lord of life and glory, the more we shall love His image as we behold it visibly marked in His dear people, and the more we shall cleave to them as being Christ's with tender affection. It is our dim, scanty, and imperfect knowledge of God the Father in His eternal love, and of the Lord Jesus Christ in His grace and glory, which leaves us so often cold, lifeless, and dead in our affections towards Him; and with the declension of love towards the Head comes on decay of love towards His members. If there were more blessed revelations to our soul of the Person and work, grace and glory, beauty and blessedness of the Lord Jesus Chris...