We must learn what God is to us, not by our own thoughts, but by what He has revealed Himself to be, and that is, “The God of all grace.”
The Lord that I have known as laying down His life for me is the same Lord I have to do with every day of my life, and all His dealings with me are on the same principles of grace. The great secret of growth is the looking up to the Lord as gracious. How precious, how strengthening it is to know that Jesus is at this moment feeling and exercising the same love towards me as when He died on the cross for me.
The Circumstances of Life
This is a truth that should be used by us in the most common everyday circumstances of life. Suppose, for instance, I find an evil temper in myself, which I feel it difficult to overcome; let me bring it to Jesus as my Friend; virtue goes out of Him for my need. The source of real strength is in the sense of the Lord’s being gracious. The natural man in us always disbelieves Christ as the only source of strength and of every blessing. Suppose my soul is out of communion; the natural heart says, “I must correct the cause of this before I can come to Christ,” but He is gracious, and knowing this, the way is to return to Him at once, just as we are, and then humble ourselves deeply before Him. It is only in Him and from Him that we shall find that which will restore our souls. Humbleness in His presence is the only real humility. If we own ourselves in His presence to be just what we are, we shall find that He will show us nothing but grace.
Thoughts About Jesus
It is Jesus who gives abiding rest to our souls, and not what our thoughts about ourselves may be. Faith never thinks about that which is in ourselves as its ground of rest; it receives, loves and apprehends what God has revealed and what are God’s thoughts about Jesus, in whom is His rest. Our eyes and our hearts being occupied with Him, they will be effectually prevented from being taken up with the vanity and sin around, and this too will be our strength against the sin and corruption of our own hearts.
Whatever I see in myself that is not in Him is sin, but then it is not thinking of my own sins and my own vileness and being occupied with them that will humble me, but thinking of the Lord Jesus, dwelling upon the excellency in Him.
It is well to be done with ourselves and to be taken up with Jesus. We are entitled to forget ourselves; we are entitled to forget our sins; we are entitled to forget all but Jesus.
The Young Christian