We are the sons of God. We are not merely called and even legally declared, but actually are sons of God by receiving the life and nature of God; and so we are the very brethren of our Lord; not only in His human nature, but still more in His divine relationship. “Therefore, He is not ashamed to call us brethren.” He gives us that which entitles us to that right, and makes us worthy of it. He does not introduce us into a position for which we are uneducated and unfitted, but He gives us a nature worthy of our glorious standing; and as He shall look upon us in our complete and glorious exaltation reflecting His own likeness and shining in His Father’s glory, He shall have no cause to be ashamed of us. Even now He is pleased to acknowledge us before the universe and call us brethren in the sight of all earth and heaven. Oh, how this dignifies the humblest saint of God! How little we need mind the misunderstanding of the world if He “is not ashamed to call us brethren.” So let us go out to-day to represent His royal family. JUNE 24. “I will clothe thee with change of raiment” (Zech. iii. 4). For Paul every exercise of the Christian life was simply the grace of Jesus Christ imparted to him and lived out by him, so that holiness was to put on the Lord Jesus and all the robes of His perfect righteousness which he loves to describe so often in his beautiful epistles. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved,” he says to the Colossians, “bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering”; and, “above all these things, put on love which is the bond of perfectness.” None of these things are regarded as intrinsic qualities in us, but as imparted graces from the hand of Jesus. And even in the later years of his life, and after the mature experience of a quarter of a century we find him exclaiming, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but refuse, that I might win Christ and be found in Him.” Lord, enable us to-day to go out, clothed in Thy robes of perfect rightness and with our hearts in adjustment with Thy perfect love. JUNE 25. “Who leadeth us in triumph” (II. Cor. ii. 14). Every victor must first be a self-conqueror. But the method of Joshua’s victory was the uplifted arm of Moses on the Mount. As he held up his hands Joshua prevailed, as he lowered them Amalek prevailed. It was to be a battle of faith and not of human strength, and the banner that was to wave over the discomfited foe, “Jehovah-nissi.” This, too, is the secret of our spiritual triumph. “If we are led of the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace.”