"For both He [Jesus] who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them breth-
ren . . . "
It is amazing, to think that Christ and His church are so closely linked, that the Messiah Himself deigned to undergo *everything* we experi-
ence (yet without sin). Do we suffer? He suffered first. Do we have to get sanctified? He, though always perfectly holy, had to "learn obedi-
ence through the things which He suffered," (Heb. 5:8). Is Jesus in glory, and bliss? The church is there with Him, even now, (cf. Col. 2:12).
Christ does not stand aloof from us, those whom He has redeemed. He is *with* us in every way, as He is our great and elder "brother" in the family of God.
[Puritan quote of the day: "He that enjoys much of God in this life carries heaven about him. . . . The enjoyment of God's sweet pres-
ence here is an earnest of our enjoying Him in heaven." --Thomas Watson, in, "A Body of Divinity"]
