WHEN Christ uttered, in the judgment hall of Pilate, the remarkable words?”I am a king,” he pronounced a sentiment fraught with unspeakable dignity and power. His enemies might deride his pretensions and express their mockery of his claim, by presenting him with a crown of thorns, a reed and a purple robe, and nailing him to the cross; but in the eyes of unfallen intelligences, he was a king. A higher power presided over that derisive ceremony, and converted it into a real coronation. That crown of thorns was indeed the diadem of empire; that purple robe was the badge of royalty; that fragile reed was the symbol of unbounded power; and that cross the throne of dominion which shall never end.

– J.L. Reynolds, Church Polity or the Kingdom of Christ in its internal and external development, chapter 1

“It were an easy thing to be a Christian, if religion stood only in a few outward works and duties, but to take the soul to task, and to deal roundly with our own hearts, and to let conscience have its full work, and to bring the soul into spiritual subjection unto God, this is not so easy a matter, because the soul out of self-love is loath to enter into itself, lest it should have other thoughts of itself than it would have.”

–Richard Sibbes, The Soul’s Conflict, and Victory Over Itself by Faith, XV:vii:6, in The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Vol. 1, (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1862), 200.

Hebrews 4:9-11 – So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Hebrews 10:34 – You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

Hebrews 11:9-10 – By faith [Abraham] went to live in the land of promise…for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Hebrews 11:26 – [Moses] considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Hebrews 13:14 – For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.