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

  “US” by D. G. Miles McKee   “If God be for us who can be against us ?" -Romans 8:31 [KJV] What a wonderful statement! But the question arises, who are those favoured people mentioned in our verse? Who exactly are the “US”?  The Epistle to the Romans shows that the “US” are people who, 'having been justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Romans 8:1). Are you one of the “US”? Furthermore, the “US” are those who were once God’s enemies but now are reconciled to God by the death of His Son (Romans 5:10). Also, the “US” are the ones to whom the Spirit bears witness that they are the children of God (Romans 8:16). Then again, the “US” are those who rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2). They can and do look forward to heavenly glory saying, "If God be for us, who can be against us?” There can be no doubt that God is on the side of His redeemed, reconciled, and regenerated people. He is for us.  Painfully diff...

" Remember Lot's wife." —Luke 17:32 [KJV] It may do a disciple much good, it can do him no harm, to call to mind the judgments of his God. Hence he may learn from others' harm to be more wise and wary. If he sees professors fall away, it teaches him to take heed; it tends to lay him low in humility at the feet of Jesus, and excites gratitude and love in his heart, and makes him cry out in astonishment, Why am I not fallen! How am I kept! "Glory to grace!"   It is well, O believer, ever to remember thou standest by faith; "Be not high minded, but fear." O, fear to look back with a wishful eye, or a lusting heart, to the sinful vanities of a carnal world. Remember Lot's wife. What of her? She loitered; she did not keep up with her husband; she was behind him. So, soul; if thou dost loiter, and not keep close with Jesus thy Husband, thou wilt be in danger. "She looked back from behind him." Here was an act of folly, unb...

" Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man." —Matthew 26:74 [KJV] Self-righteous hearts are ready to think, better to have concealed Peter's abominable wicked conduct. No; the Spirit of wisdom hereby stains the glory of all flesh, and exalts the super-abounding riches of Jesus' grace over the aboundings of sin. He shews, in Peter's denying his loving Saviour, what human nature is, and what shocking depths of sin a believer may fall into when left to the workings of carnal nature and the buffetings of Satan. Dreadful to think of! Most earnestly to be prayed against!  Yet we see the affectionate heart of Jesus is ever towards His wounded, fallen members. Love is within, and by a look of love, how suddenly, how effectually did Jesus raise and restore Peter! Three denials of Jesus, each attended with higher aggravations, though deserving only a look of wrath, and a frown into hell; yet were followed with a look from Jesus which bro...

" I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which now I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me." —Galatians 2:20 [KJV] The state of a Christian is a seeming paradox. No marvel the things of God are foolishness to natural men, and that we are accounted fools for Christ by them; for the truths of God, as well as the life of His children, appear to be absurd to them. But "the life of Jesus is made manifest in our flesh." —II Corinthians 4:11 . Hence He saith, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself." —Matthew. 16:24 . Deny the PRIDE of his own righteousness, the corrupt LUSTS of his sinful flesh, and own Me as his life, and follow Me as his Lord in the regeneration; in this crucifixion of nature, this death to every hope but Jesus, this life of faith on Him, consists the peace, love, holiness, and joy of our souls; this...

" Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." —James 4:8 [KJV] How sweetly is the children's duty and the Father's promise joined together! The latter is a most powerful encouragement to the former; though we were "sometimes afar off, yet being made nigh by the blood of Jesus , " we are exhorted to DRAW nigh to God in prayer, in full assurance of faith, firmly believing that "faithful is He who hath promised , " He will draw nigh to us to bless us. To live near God is our heaven below; to experience a distance from Him is our misery; we cannot draw nigh to God but in the way He has drawn nigh to us, that is in Christ, in the humanity of Jesus His Son; in all our approaches to God, consider this, Jesus is the object of our faith, and GOD IN HIM; all other objects drawn nigh to, will leave the soul in a painful sense of distance from the true God and real comfort.  Happy, only happy canst thou be, while thou art daily living in c...

" This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." —Acts 1:11 [KJV] The parting of dear friends is very grievous and affecting; but sorrow is alleviated from expectation of meeting again. O the joy of meeting our dear friends in glory, who are gone before! but what will heighten all, will be sight and enjoyment of our best Friend and dearest Saviour. The disciples were looking stedfastly to heaven, after their dear Master ascended to glory, when they received this assurance: they saw His human form, the same dear man, their beloved companion with whom they had so often eat and drank and taken sweet counsel, and who was lately crucified, dead, and buried; this very man Jesus they saw ascend; the Son of God came from heaven in Spirit; He assumed a body of flesh and blood; He lived in it on earth; and having "finished the work His Father gave Him to do, He took the same body with Him to...

" And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the L ORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy ." —Exodus 33:19 [KJV] Carnal reason, pride, and unbelief, like a threefold cord, binds the soul under legal bondage; each of these mutually strengthens the other, and all combine to oppose the sovereign goodness and grace of our Lord. Instead of believing in, so as to be comforted by free-grace declarations from our God, how apt are we to consult flesh and blood! How prone to reject them, because we cannot reconcile them to our carnal reason! here is the grand source of that damning sin, unbelief .  Marvel not, believer, though the pride of thy flesh rises and rebels against distinguishing grace and discriminating love. This, though sweet to the experience of faith, is bitter to the stomach of rebellious nature: but here is thy mercy; grace, which is s...