The Spirit is here tracing the outline of the experience of those who, knowing themselves to be of that church (made so of God) which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, are serving the living and true God, and waiting for His Son from heaven. " For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus; for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they of the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." Jesus treated by His own like all the prophets-put to death-is then to be the saint's expectation, if, knowing his fellowship with that which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, he really is serving God and waiting for His Son from heaven. I do not say, that because such things befall us not, therefore we are not Christians; but I do say, and with confidence, that the want of preparedness of mind, yea, and expectancy of such things among Christians, does show most painfully how far those things which are outside of God the Father and of the Lord, yea, often opposed to these, how far these things have gotten a wrong place in many of our hearts, even as they have leavened the whole lump of the professing body. And there is this too we may lay to heart, if not ready to be killed for Him, we are not ready to die daily for Him. This may startle some who think they could give up much for the Lord, only reserving life; but I believe their calculation is in the flesh, and that there is no dying daily save in the Spirit in grace, and that where this is there is both the sense of innate weakness, and also preparedness for all surrender to the Lord. Religion not built upon grace, not based upon Jesus and the resurrection, not sustained by the Holy Ghost and the hope of the Lord's coming, may enable us to do many things, but sooner or later it will break down and chew, not our want of more religion, but want of true religion altogether. This is a hard saying, but so are all those sayings which are the counterparts of the glorious privileges given us in Christ Jesus; and indeed I do not know but one thing that can nerve the soul for this, and that is a most simple yet blessed truth-part of the believer's portion in Christ Jesus; namely, that-