Look at him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at him. Look at him whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.
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Author: Matthew (Page 7 of 11)
My dear Friend, I am still a poor sinner and I have to look to Christ every day as I did at the very first. Come along with me!
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The preacher began thus— “My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pains. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!” said he, in broad Essex, “many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some on ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.'”
Then the good man followed up his text in this way:—”Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me!” …
I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said,—I did not take much notice of it,—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before!
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Do you ever feel like you’ve failed so badly that you can’t relate to God?
You feel filthy. Pathetic. You’ve let him down – again.
Saying sorry doesn’t seem to cut it. It doesn’t seem enough. Your sin is too big for a mere apology. It requires something more.
So you try to deal with the guilt yourself. You beat yourself up. You tell yourself you’re a failure. You wallow in the guilt, because after all, it’s what you deserve. You repent of the same sins over and over, hoping that this time, deep down, you really mean it and God will forgive you.
We try to atone for our failures, resolve to try harder next time, and maybe then we’ll feel like we’re forgiven.
In all of this, what never occurs to us is that in trying to atone for our perceived offences, we commit a greater one – we doubt that Jesus’ blood can in fact atone for our sins in full. We forget the free and full forgiveness offered to us in Jesus and insist on adding our own acts of penance.
Saying sorry doesn’t cut it. Your sin is too big for a mere apology. It does require something more. It deserves death, judgment and hell. It’s that serious. Too serious to be dealt with by a week of wallowing in guilt. Too big for a few good deeds to make up for it.
Sin deserves death. Yet for the Christian, that death has already taken place. The cost of our rebellion has already been paid by another. Jesus’ death has done everything necessary. We simply look to him, and receive forgiveness as a gift.
Have you repented enough? Almost certainly not. There are sinful depths to our hearts that will take a lifetime to uncover. We will always need to repent.
Does that mean we can never approach God? Not at all. Jesus has done everything necessary for us to draw near. Beating ourselves up, punishing ourselves – it would never be enough. Wonderfully, for the Christian it is never necessary.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-23)
She didn’t even know my name.
I was visiting a church and was browsing the bookstall after the meeting had ended. Having found what I wanted to buy, I realised I had no cash or cheque book on me. A woman overhead me say so.
“Let me buy it for you.”
I protested. I didn’t know this woman. The book cost fifty dollars. I started: “That’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly—” when she cut me off.
“Are you a Christian?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
Immediately she said: “So can’t a sister buy a book for her brother?” As she said this, she got out her cheque book and reached for a pen.
We had just met. I was a white British man in my mid-twenties; she was a middle-aged African American woman. Yet she instantly offered to buy me a fifty dollar book, because in Christ, I was her brother.
Sister, you will likely never read this; but one day, when we meet again, I will thank you for showing me so clearly what Jesus meant when he said: “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another”.
Originally posted on February 29th, 2012. Cross-posted to Call to Family.
Loving this from Nim Clemo:
Maybe I’ve accepted God’s forgiveness, but I feel so guilty for Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf that I go into overdrive, trying to make it up to God by working really hard at serving him. Again, pride and self sufficiency appear, as I convince myself that my good works are enough. I’ve forgotten God’s overwhelming love and willingness to save me – he doesn’t want me to try to make it up to him. It’s as ridiculous as a man buying flowers for the wife he loves, and her fishing around in her handbag and saying “OK, how much do I owe you for these?”
Great stuff – click the title to see more at her blog.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. (Philippians 3:12-15a)
Paul is writing as one of the spiritual heavyweights of his day – one of Christ’s apostles, an authoritative teacher. If anyone were considered mature in the faith, it would be Paul. But what does he say characterises such Christian maturity?
I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on…
We don’t mature as Christians and then plateau. This side of the new creation, there’s no stage in the Christian life where we can say we’ve made it. Christian maturity is shown by an attitude that says “we’re not there yet”. We always keep growing; we are continually striving towards our goal. Christian maturity isn’t a passive state we reach, but is shown by striving for… what? What is the goal Paul is striving towards?
I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)
What he’s striving for is to know Christ. This is what Christian maturity looks like: a desire to know more of Christ. We shouldn’t be stagnant in our desire to know him better; in fact, if we think we’ve arrived in the Christian life, that only goes to show we’ve missed the heart of it. We are saved for a relationship with the God who made us, and if our relationship with him stops growing, we’ve missed the point of our salvation.
Paul wants to know Christ. It’s the one thing he does – pressing on to know him (3:8), gain him (3:8), and be found in him (3:9). How much does this describe me? Worryingly little. I can end up thinking that maturity means being a leader, being respected, or knowing my Bible better than those around me. But if I’m not wanting to know Christ more and more, and not just about him, then I’m showing my immaturity. Jesus died so that we could know him; knowing him is what we were made for.
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land. (Hosea 6:3, HCSB)
(Article revised and reposted; original from 27th March 2008)
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.— Attributed to Martin Luther
Britain is sometimes referred to as a nation of grumblers. Complaining about things is somewhat of a national sport. It’s raining? We wish it were sunny. It’s sunny? We complain about the heat. If I’m driving you somewhere you’ll hear exasperated comments like “indicate, why don’t you?” or “do you want to cause an accident?”. I’m not yet thirty and already I’m complaining about “kids these days”.
The British pale into insignificance, however, when compared with the people of Israel on their way to the promised land. In Numbers we hear:
The Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4b-6)
The Lord has rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and is taking them to a land full of blessing. Each day he gives them all the nourishment they need by providing manna – bread from heaven. Yet the people long for the days of slavery in Egypt. “We were better off there”, they say. “In Egypt we had cucumbers!”
It’s not just a few grumbles about physical comforts. The Lord tells us the spiritual reality behind what they’re doing:
“You have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”” (Numbers 11:20)
The Israelites are still in the wilderness. They’ve not yet made it to the promised land. But in the wilderness the Lord is with them. 1 Corinthians 10:4 tells us that they “drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ”. By saying they’d rather be back in Egypt, they are “rejecting the Lord, who is among [them]”. They’d rather have cucumbers in chains, than know freedom with Christ.
As we travel through the wilderness of this world, we too are prone to grumble. The Christian life is hard; we face trials and temptations; we can very easily take our eyes off the Lord. Rather than turn to him in our anguish, we turn away from him and grumble.
What is it that you grumble about? I complain about my job, ill health, wet weather and missed buses. I grumble about how much better other people’s lives seem than mine. In doing so, I forget all the ways the Lord has blessed me and continues to bless me.
How do we address grumbling? Not by excusing it (“everyone does it”), nor by blithely ignoring it (“cheer up, it’s not that bad!”). No – we take our grumbles to our loving Father, who never ceases to do good to his children. He knows that we live in the wilderness, but gives us the true Bread of Heaven to eat (John 6:26-35). We look to Jesus – and as we see him, we find that his goodness outshines all the darkness around us. Who needs cucumbers when you can have Christ?
(Reflections on “Cucumbers rather than Christ”, the talk given at Emmanuel Bristol yesterday. Further reading: Glen Scrivener on the Bread of Heaven and Dan Hames on what the wilderness years point to.)