Carrying His Treasure With Him

He did not go up to Jerusalem, to those who were apostles before him, but down to Arabia, carrying, as it were, his treasure—Christ—with him. He did not seek to improve it, but was satisfied with it just as it was.
This brings to mind the Gospel by John, for that gives us, before this time of Paul, sample after sample of the soul finding its satisfaction in Christ. Every quickened one there illustrates it. Andrew, and Peter, and Philip, and Nathanael, in the first chapter, afterward the Samaritan and her companions at Sychar, and then the convicted adulteress, and the excommunicated beggar, all of them tell us, in language which cannot be misunderstood, that they had found satisfaction in Christ, that having been alone with Him in their sins, they were now independent. Having had a personal, immediate dealing with Him as the Savior, they did not look elsewhere. Arabia would do for them as well as Jerusalem, just as in the experience of Paul of the Galatians. They never appeared to converse with flesh and blood. Ordinances were in no measure their confidence. Their souls were proving that faith is that principle which puts sinners into immediate contact with Christ, and makes them independent of all that man can do for them.
How unspeakably blessed it is to see such a state of soul illustrated in any fellow-sinner, in men "of like passions with ourselves."