"FOR HE THAT SANCTIFIETH AND THEY WHO ARE SANCTIFIED ARE ALL OF ONE." It is honour and blessing beyond comprehension that we belong to Jesus, especially if we consider the amazing contrast between us. This is very great, as it respects His purity and our pollution; His wealth and our poverty; His strength and our weakness; His happiness and our misery; His knowledge and our ignorance; His dignity and our degradation. But though the contrast is so great, He acknowledges us, and there is a degree of likeness: we have the same Father, even God; we possess His nature, Spirit, and image in a degree; our work and His are the same, to glorify God; our cause and interests are identified with His; our aim and end are one with His; and His heaven is to be our eternal home. We are often ashamed of ourselves, and ashamed of one another; the world is ashamed of us, but Jesus never is. He owns us in heaven before His Father and His holy angels now, and He will call us brethren, blessed of His Father, on the throne of judgment by and by. If Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren, never let us be ashamed to own each other, though in some things we differ. Jesus owns us all.

For Meditation:
Lord, what is man's distinguished race,
Whom Thou dost for Thy brethren own?
Crowned with dignity and grace,
To brightest Seraphim unknown!