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

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him."   -Colossians 2:6 [KJV]   It is to the glory of the grace of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, that any sinner receives Christ; and Christ is the glory of that heart which receives Him. Thus, there is a mutual complacency and delight between Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit and believing sons. Every one who believes in Christ Jesus, has received Christ as his Lord, his atonement, his righteousness, his salvation as verily as St. Paul, or any of the apostles. God is alike the Father of all such; the Son is alike the Saviour of all such; and the Holy Ghost is alike the Sanctifier and Comforter of all such.    O well may the believing heart cry out in a rapture of joy, Lord, what rich grace is this! What glorious privilege am I invested with? What hast Thou wrought! What am I! Why should Jesus apprehend me, worthless me, that I should apprehend Him! Lord, what wouldst Thou hav...

"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise." - Psalm 57:7 [KJV]   My soul! Here is a delightful subject proposed for thine evening meditation, in the fixedness of the heart. The only possible way of really "singing and giving praise to the Lord" with the heart, is when the Lord hath fixed thine heart to the service. Many rush to ordinances, as the unthinking horse rusheth to the battle: not so, my soul, be thy practice. See to it, that He who alone can give a fixedness to the heart, hath fixed thine; for then, when the view of a God in Christ is brought home by the Holy Ghost to thy warmest and most devout affections, then, and not before, will there be a going forth of those affections, awakened and led by the same Almighty Spirit, upon the glorious person of thy Lord, and faith will be in lively exercise, in a way of praise, and love, and obedience, and joy. Then thou wilt sing and give praise "with the spirit, an...

"For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul." -Psalm 109:31 [KJV]   How cheering, how comforting it is, to have a friend to stand by us when we are in trouble. Such a friend is Jesus. In the hour of necessity, He comes as a friend to stand by the right hand of the poor creature, whose soul is condemned by guilt and accusations. But He stands in a far higher relation than that of a friend; He stands too as a Surety and a Deliverer. He goes, as it were, into the court; and when the prisoner stands at the bar, He comes forward and stands at his right hand as His surety and bondsman; He brings out of His own bosom the acquittance of the debt signed and sealed with His own blood, He produces it before the eyes of the court, and claims and demands the acquittal and absolution of the prisoner at whose right hand He stands.  He stands there, then, that the prisoner may be freely pardoned, and completely justified from ...