Now, let me also offer a word of exhortation to those who are married and espoused to Christ. All I will say is this: O let Christ’s Bride live on him, and take all from him! Like a poor woman married to a rich man, she lives upon his riches. Many people are prepared to say, “If Christ will call us his Bride, we will live on ourselves: We will pray, repent, believe, etc.” But the Bride of Christ must get all these things in him, and take all from him, and live wholly on him, and freely on him. When Joseph’s brethren did not recognize him, they were buying and selling with him; they would take nothing from him without offering money. But when they realized he was a brother, despite all the offenses they had committed against him, they were content to come down, every man of them, and take all from him for nothing. And this is the way we must take with Christ when we are married to him. We must not, with the legalist, have repentance and duties of our own. No, we must take everything from him, who is the repository of all divine fullness. In this matter, the believer’s part is simply to receive, out of that fullness,  grace upon grace.

–Ralph Erskine