LOOK AT JESUS by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 1, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 35.

LOOK AT JESUS.

By T.

It is by looking at Jesus that we get correct views of ourselves. He shows us our imperfections and reveals to us what we should be. While we look at ourselves we will either become proud, boastful, and exalted, or else we become discouraged and sink in despair because of our manifest imperfections. The imperfections are just as apparent in the one case as in the other. But the proud and boastful man does not see his faults, because he keeps his eyes closed to that “True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Neither does the man who is buried in despair see his faults in their proper light; for he is looking only to himself, and therefore has no standard by which the real character of his guilt and troubles should be measured.

The haughty, self-satisfied man feels secure. He has persuaded himself that he is all right, and that every act of his life is perfection itself. But how grossly is he deceiving himself! He has made his own standard by which he is measuring himself, and as he is most naturally prejudiced in his own favor, he unconsciously bends that standard to fit every imperfection in his crooked character.

The man who is in gloom and despair has also selected a false standard, and therefore does not see himself as he should. He may have a dark enough view of his sin. He is doubtless viewing all his troubles in a very much exaggerated light. But all the time he is only looking to himself, or some other human arm, for aid. He would gladly escape, but he sees no way out. Despair, hopeless despair, is holding him in chains of torture.

Now what both of these classes of persons need is to see Jesus. The self-sufficient, selfish, self-satisfied man, when he beholds the perfect and lovely Jesus, will see his own miserable imperfections. He will see how blinded he was in setting any standard before his mind that was below the divine Pattern. He will rejoice to know the Lord, and gladly will he yield to His discipline, that all the accumulated evil of his life may be washed away.

Then the poor, gloomy, despairing one, as he turns to Jesus, hears Him saying, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matt. 11:28. Study this word of the Master. It is a wonderful invitation. “Come unto Me,” is the entreaty of the Man of Calvary. And “all,” not a select few merely, but “all ye that labor and are heavy laden” are invited. And then hear the positive promise, “I will give you rest.”

And, O, the “rest” in Jesus! It is indeed the perfection of rest. It blends every emotion of the soul into a surpassing joy and peace. Do you know Jesus? If not, accept His invitation, “Come unto Me.” And you will then know for yourself that He does “give you rest.”