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

Men speak of what they are worth, and they immediately think of their earthly pedigree or possessions of money, land, stocks, bonds, gold, silver, etc. This is such a low estimate of life and reflects only the depravity of our hearts. The worth and value of your life cannot be measured by what you possess but only by what possesses you. If you own yourself, your life measures up to selfishness. If the world owns you, your life measures up to worldliness. If other people own you, your life measures up to slavery. However, if Christ owns you - your life, your heart, your mind, soul, and body, your possessions which are really not your own - then your life measures up to a life lived for the glory of God in Christ. Those who belong to Christ were BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. Christ has redeemed His people and bought them with His own precious blood. He has justified them by His blood and brought them into His family forever and ever. Those who belong to Christ are to spend their lives glorify...

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." -Philemon vs. 25 [KJV] It is the regenerating breath of the Lord Jesus Christ which makes the soul alive unto Himself. This is manifest from His own language: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63) . Then for the first time "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit." For you will observe that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is not with our carnal mind: that ever remains the same, a body of sin and death, flesh, corrupt flesh, "in which dwelleth no good thing," and therefore not the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.   His grace is with our spirit, that "new man" of which we read that "it is after God, [that is, after the image of God] created in righteousness and true holiness." This is called our "spirit," because it is born of the ...

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:3 [KJV] Only those who are poor in spirit, are capable of receiving grace. He who is swollen with self-excellency and self-sufficiency is not fit for Christ. He is full already. If the hand is full of pebbles it cannot receive gold. The glass is first emptied, before you pour in wine. God first empties a man of himself, before He pours in the precious wine of His grace. He who is poor in spirit is a Christ-admirer. He has high thoughts of Christ. He sees himself naked and flies to Christ, to be clothed in the garments of His righteousness. He sees himself wounded and as the wounded deer runs to the water so he thirsts for Christ's blood, the water of life. "Lord!" says he, "give me Christ or I die!" His conscience has turned into a fiery serpent and has stung him; now he will give all the world for a brazen serpent! He sees himself in a state of death; and how prec...