LOOKING TO JESUS.
My friends, look to Christ, and not to yourselves. That is what is the matter with a great many sinners; instead of looking to Christ, they are looking at the bite of sin.
Those who are weak in grace dwell more upon their sins than upon the Saviour; more upon their misery than upon free grace and mercy; more upon that which may feed their fears than upon that which may strengthen their faith; more upon the cross than the crown.
One of Satan's devices to keep poor souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition is causing them to be always posing and musing upon sin; to mind their sins more than their Saviour: yea, so to mind their sins as to forget and neglect their Saviour. Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease that they cannot see their remedy, though it be near; and they do so muse upon their debts that they have neither mind nor heart to think of their surety.
How can we in practice copy Jesus? How do you write a copy in your copy-book? By constantly looking at the top line, imitating its capital letters, small letters, up-strokes, downstrokes, even stops. So be always "looking unto Jesus."
Alas! alas! for the coldness, the vagrancy, and the infrequency of the thoughts which we offer to Him who ever thinks of us, and whom it is our life to know and keep in our hearts. Alas! alas! for the satire on Christian life, as we often see it, which that exhortation and its accompanying motives contain, "Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling—consider—Christ Jesus."
