If you are a child of God, you belong wholly and entirely to Christ. Yet are there not many who seem to imagine that if they save a corner in their souls for their religion, all will be well? Satan may stalk across the broad acres of their judgment and their understanding, and he may reign over their thoughts and their imaginations; but if in some quiet nook there be preserved the appearance of religion, all will be right. Oh! be not deceived in this; Christ never went halves in a man yet. He will have the whole of you, or He will have none of you. He will be Lord paramount, Master supreme, absolute Monarch, or else He will have nothing to do with you. You may serve Satan, if you will, but when you serve Him, you shall not serve Christ too. If you are not wholly given up to God--if, in the intent and purpose of your souls, every thought, and wish, and power, and talent, and possession be not devoted and consecrated to Christ, you have no reason to believe that you have been redeemed by His precious blood. In His people, whom He has purchased for His own, He _will_ reign without a rival. Christ will not be part-proprietor of any man. "_Continue in Prayer._" Be much in prayer. God's plants grow faster in the warm atmosphere of the closet--it is a forcing-place for spiritual vegetation. He who would grow strong must often kneel at the throne of grace. Of all training practice for spiritual battles, _knee practice_ is the most healthful and strengthening. _The Holy Saviour._ There is an expression used by the apostle Paul respecting the Lord Jesus, which is very beautiful and significant--"who _knew_ no sin." It does not merely say _did_ none, but _knew_ none. Sin was no acquaintance of His; He was acquainted with grief, but no acquaintance of sin. He had to walk in the midst of its most frequented haunts, but did not know it. Not that He was ignorant of its nature, or unaware of its penalty, but He did not _know_ it; He was a stranger to it; He never by word, by nod, or by smile, gave it the faintest recognition. Of course He knew what sin was, for He was very God, but with sin He had no communion, no fellowship, no brotherhood. He was a perfect stranger in the presence of sin; He was a foreigner; He was not an inhabitant of that land where sin is acknowledged. He passed through the wilderness of suffering, but into the wilderness of sin He could never go. "He _knew_ no sin:" mark that expression and treasure it up; and when you are thinking of your Substitute, and behold Him bleeding upon the cross, think that you see written in those lines of blood, "He knew no sin." Mingled with the redness of His blood--that Rose of Sharon--behold the purity of His nature--the Lily of the Valley--"He knew no sin." _Christ our Example_.