Looking Unto Jesus!
Only three words,
but in these three words
is the whole secret of spiritual life.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
In the Scriptures, to learn there what He is, what He has done,
what He gives, what He desires;
to find in His character our pattern, in His teachings our instruction,
in His precepts our law, in His promises our support,
in His person and in His work a full satisfaction provided for every need
of our souls. John 5:39
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Crucified, to find in His shed blood our ransom, our pardon, our peace.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Risen, to find in Him the
righteousness which alone makes us righteous, and permits us, all unworthy
as we are, to draw near with boldness, in His Name, to Him Who is His Father
and our Father, His God and our God.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Glorified, to find in Him our
Heavenly Advocate completing by His intercession the work inspired by His
loving-kindness for our salvation (1 John 2:1); who even now is appearing
for us before the face of God (Hebrews 9:24), the kingly Priest, the
spotless Victim, continually bearing the iniquity of our holy things (Exodus
28:38).
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Revealed by the Holy Spirit,
to find in constant communion with Him the cleansing of our sin-stained
hearts, the illumination of our darkened spirits, the transformation of our
rebel wills; enabled by Him to triumph over all attacks of the world and of
the evil one, resisting their violence by Jesus our Strength, and overcoming
their subtlety by Jesus our Wisdom; upheld by the sympathy of Jesus, Who was
spared no temptation, and by the help of Jesus, Who yielded to none.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Who gives repentance as well as
forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31) because He gives us the grace to recognize,
to deplore, to confess, and to forsake our transgressions.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
To receive from Him the task
and the cross for each day, with the grace which is sufficient to
carry the cross and to accomplish the task; the grace that enables us to be
patient with His patience, active with His activity, loving with His love;
never asking “What am I able for?” but rather: “What is He not
able for?” and waiting for His strength which is made perfect in our
weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
To go forth from ourselves and
to forget ourselves so that our darkness may flee away before the brightness
of His face; so that our joys may be holy, and our sorrow restrained; that
He may cast us down, and that He may raise us up; that He may afflict us,
and that He may comfort us; that He may despoil us, and that He may enrich
us; that He may teach us to pray, and that He may answer our prayers; that
while leaving us in the world, He may separate us from it, our
life being hidden with Him in God, and our behavior bearing witness to Him
before men.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Who, having returned to the Father’s
house, is engaged in preparing a place there for us; so that this
joyful prospect may make us live in hope, and prepare us to die in peace,
when the day shall come for us to meet this last enemy, whom He has
overcome for us, whom we shall overcome through Him—so that what was once
the king of terrors is today the harbinger of eternal happiness!
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
Whose certain return, at an
uncertain time, is from age to age the expectation and the hope of the
faithful Church, who is encouraged in her patience, watchfulness and joy by
the thought that the Savior is at hand (Philippians 4:4-5; 1 Thessalonians
5:23).
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
“The Author and the Finisher of our faith.” That is to say,
He Who is its pattern and its source, even as He is
its object; and Who from the first step even to the last, marches at the
head of the believers; so that by Him our faith may be inspired, encouraged,
sustained, and led on to its supreme consummation (Hebrews 12:2).
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
And at nothing else, as our text expresses
in one untranslatable word (aphoroontes), which
at the same time directs us to fix our gaze upon Him, and to turn it
away from everything else.
UNTO JESUS
And not at ourselves, our
thoughts, our reasonings, our imaginings, our inclinations, our wishes, our
plans.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the world, its
customs, its example, its rules, its judgments.
UNTO JESUS
And not at Satan, though he
seeks to terrify us by his fury, or to entice us by his flatteries. Oh! from
how many useless questions we would save ourselves, from how many disturbing
scruples, from how much loss of time, dangerous dallyings with evil, waste
of energy, empty dreams, bitter disappointments, sorrowful struggles, and
distressing falls, by looking steadily unto Jesus, and by following Him
wherever He may lead us. Then we shall be too much occupied with not losing
sight of the path which He marks out for us, to waste even a glance on those
paths in which He does not think it suitable to lead us.
UNTO JESUS
And not at our creeds, no matter how evangelical they may be.
The faith which saves, which sanctifies,
and which comforts, is not giving assent to the doctrine of
salvation; it is being united to the person of the Savior.
“It is not enough,” said Adolphe Monod,
“to know about Jesus Christ, it is necessary to
have Jesus Christ.” No one truly knows Him, if he does not first possess
Him. According to the profound saying of the beloved disciple, it is in the
Life there is Light, and it is in Jesus there is Life (John 1:4).
UNTO JESUS
And not at our meditations and our
prayers, our pious conversations and our profitable reading, the holy
meetings that we attend, nor even to our taking part in the supper of the
Lord. Let us faithfully use all these means of grace, but without
confusing them with grace itself; and without turning our gaze away from Him
Who alone makes them effectual, when, by their means, He reveals Himself to
us.
UNTO JESUS
And not to our position in the
Christian Church, to the family to which we belong, to our baptism, to
the education which we have received, to the doctrine which we profess, to
the opinion which others have formed of our piety, or to the opinion which
we have formed of it ourselves. Some of those who have prophesied in the
Name of the Lord Jesus will one day hear Him say:
“I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22-23);
but He will confess before His
Father and before His angels even the most humble of those who have looked
unto Him alone for salvation.
UNTO JESUS
And not to our brethren, not
even to the best among them and the best beloved. In following a man
we run the risk of losing our way; in following Jesus we are sure of never
losing our way. Besides, in putting a man between Jesus and ourselves, it
will come to pass that insensibly the man will increase and Jesus will
decrease; soon we no longer know how to find Jesus when we cannot find
the man, and if he fails us, all fails.
On the contrary, if Jesus is kept between us and our closest friend, our attachment to the person will be at the same time less enthralling and more deep; less passionate and more tender; less necessary and more useful; an instrument of rich blessing in the hands of God when He is pleased to make use of him; and whose absence will be a further blessing, when it may please God to dispense with him, to draw us even nearer to the only Friend who can be separated from us by “neither death nor life” (Romans 8:38-39).
UNTO JESUS
And not at His enemies or at
our own. In place of hating them and fearing them, we shall then know how to
love them and to overcome them.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the obstacles which
meet us in our path. As soon as we stop to consider them, they amaze us,
they confuse us, they overwhelm us, incapable as we are of understanding
either the reason why they are permitted, or the means by which we may
overcome them. The apostle began to sink as soon as he turned to look at the
waves tossed by the storm; it was while he was looking at Jesus that he
walked on the waters as on a rock. The more difficult our task, the more
terrifying our temptations, the more essential it is that we look only at
Jesus.
UNTO JESUS
And not at our troubles, to
count up their number, to reckon their weight, to find perhaps a certain
strange satisfaction in tasting their bitterness. Apart from Jesus trouble
does not sanctify; it hardens or it crushes. It produces not patience,
but rebellion; not sympathy, but selfishness; not hope (Romans 5:3-4),
but despair. It is
only under the shadow of the cross that we can appreciate the true weight
of our own cross, and accept it each day from His hand, to carry it with
love, with gratitude, with joy; and find in it for ourselves, a source of
blessings.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the dearest, the most
legitimate of our earthly joys, lest we be so engrossed in them that
they deprive us of the sight of the very One Who gives them to us. If we are
looking at Him first of all, then it is from Him we receive these good
things, made a thousand times more precious because we possess them as gifts
from His loving hand, which we entrust to His keeping, to enjoy them in
communion with Him, and to use them for His glory.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the instruments,
whatever they may be, which He employs to form the path which He has
appointed for us. Looking beyond man, beyond circumstances, beyond the
thousand causes so rightly called secondary, let us ascend as far as the
first cause—His will. Let us ascend even to the source of this very will—His
love. Then our gratitude, without being less lively towards those who do us
good, will not stop at them; then in the testing day, under the most
unexpected blow, the most inexplicable, the most overwhelming, we can say
with the Psalmist: “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because
Thou didst it!” (Psalm 39:9). And in the silence of our dumb
sorrow the heavenly voice will gently reply: “What I do thou
knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13:7).
UNTO JESUS
And not at the interests of our
cause, of our party, of our church—still less at our personal interests.
The single object of our life is the glory of God; if we do not make it the
supreme goal of our efforts, we must deprive ourselves of His help, for His
grace is only at the service of His glory. If, on the contrary, it is His
glory that we seek above all, we can always count on His grace.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the sincerity of our
intentions, or at the strength of our resolutions. Alas! how
often the most excellent intentions have only prepared the way for the most
humiliating falls. Let us stay ourselves, not on our intentions, but on His
love; not on our resolutions, but on His promise.
UNTO JESUS
And not at our strength. Our strength
is good only to glorify ourselves; to glorify God one must have the strength
of God.
UNTO JESUS
And not at our weakness. By
lamenting our weakness have we ever become more strong? Let us look to
Jesus, and His strength will communicate itself to our hearts, and His
praise will break forth from our lips.
UNTO JESUS
And not at our sins, neither at
the source from which they come (Matthew 15:19) nor the
chastisement which they deserve. Let us look at ourselves, only to
recognize how much need we have of looking to Him; and looking to Him,
certainly not as if we were sinless; but on the contrary, because we are
sinners, measuring the very greatness of the offence by the greatness of the
sacrifice which has atoned for it and of the grace which pardons it. “For
one look that we turn on ourselves,” said an eminent servant of God
(Robert McCheyne), “let us turn ten upon Jesus!”
“If it is very sure,” said Vinet, “that one will not lose sight of his wretched state by looking at Jesus Christ crucified—because this wretched state is, as it were, graven upon the cross—it is also very sure that in looking at one’s wretchedness, one can lose sight of Jesus Christ; because the cross is not naturally graven upon the image of one’s wretchedness.” And he adds, “Look at yourselves, but only in the presence of the cross, only through Jesus Christ.” Looking at the sin only gives death; looking at Jesus gives life. That which healed the Israelite in the wilderness, was not considering his wounds, but raising his eyes to the serpent of brass (Numbers 21:9).
UNTO JESUS
And not—do we need to say it?—at our
pretense of righteousness. Ill above all who are ill is he who
believes himself in health; blind above all who are blind is he who thinks
that he sees (John 9:41). If it is dangerous to look long at our wretchedness,
which is, alas! too real; it is much more dangerous to rest complacently on
imaginary merits.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the law. The law
gives commands, and gives no strength to carry them out; the law always
condemns, and never pardons. If we put ourselves back under the law, we
take ourselves away from grace. In so far as we make our obedience
the means of our salvation, we lose our peace, our joy, our strength; for we
have forgotten that Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believes (Romans 10:4). As soon as the law has constrained us to
seek in Him our only Savior, then also to Him only belongs the right to
command our obedience: an obedience which includes nothing less than our
whole heart, and our most secret thoughts, but which has ceased from being
an iron yoke, and an insupportable burden, to become an easy yoke and a light
burden (Mat 11:30). An obedience which He makes as delightful as it is
binding; an obedience which He inspires, at the same time as He requires it,
and which in very truth, is less a consequence of our salvation than it is a
part of this very salvation—and, like all the rest, a free gift.
UNTO JESUS
And not at what we are doing
for Him. Too much occupied with our work, we can forget our Master—it is
possible to have the hands full and the heart empty. When occupied with our
Master, we cannot forget our work; if the heart is filled with His love, how
can the hands fail to be active in His service?
UNTO JESUS
And not to the apparent success of
our efforts. The apparent success is not the measure of the real
success; and besides, God has not told us to succeed, but to work;
it is of our work that He requires an account, and
not of our success. Why then concern ourselves with success? It is for us to
scatter the seed, for God to gather the fruit; if not today, then it will
be tomorrow; if He does not employ us to gather it, then He will employ
others.
Even when success is granted to us, it is always dangerous to fix our attention on it; on the one hand, we are tempted to take some of the credit of it to ourselves; on the other hand, we thus accustom ourselves to abate our zeal when we cease to perceive its result; that is to say, at the very time when we should redouble our energy. To look at the success is to walk by sight; to look at Jesus, and to persevere in following Him and serving Him, in spite of all discouragements, is to walk by faith.
UNTO JESUS
And not to the spiritual gifts
which we have already received, or which we are now receiving from Him. As
to yesterday’s grace, it has passed with yesterday’s work; we can no
longer make use of it, we should no longer linger over it. As to
today’s grace, given for today’s work, it is entrusted to us, not to be
looked at, but to be used. We are not to gloat over it as a treasure,
counting up our riches, but to spend it immediately, and remain poor,
“Looking unto Jesus.”
UNTO JESUS
And not at the amount of sorrow
that our sins make us experience, or at the amount of humiliation
which they produce in us. If only we are humiliated by them enough to make
us no longer complacent with ourselves; if only we are troubled by them
enough to make us look to Jesus, so that He may deliver us from them, that is
all that He asks from us; and it is also this look which more than anything else
will make our tears spring and our pride fall. And when it is given to us
as to Peter, to weep bitterly (Luke 22:62). Oh! then may our tear-dimmed eyes
remain more than ever directed unto Jesus; for even our repentance
will become a snare to us, if we think to blot out in some measure by our
tears those sins which nothing can blot out, except the blood of the Lamb of
God.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the brightness of our
joy, the strength of our assurance, or the warmth of our love.
Otherwise, when for a little time this love seems to have grown cold, this
assurance to have vanished, this joy to have failed us—either as the result
of our own faithlessness, or for the trial of our faith—immediately, having
lost our feelings, we think that we have lost our strength, and we allow
ourselves to fall into an abyss of sorrow, even into cowardly
idleness, or perhaps sinful complaints!
Ah! rather let us remember that if the feelings with their sweetness, are absent, the faith with its strength remains with us. To be able always to be “abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58), let us look steadily, not at our ever-changeful hearts, but at Jesus, who is always the same.
UNTO JESUS
And not at the heights of holiness
to which we have attained. If no one may believe himself a child of God
so long as he still finds stains in his heart, and stumblings
in his life, who could taste the joy of salvation? But this joy is
not bought with a price. Holiness is the fruit, not the root of
our redemption. It is the work of Jesus Christ for us, which
reconciles us unto God; it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us,
which renews us in His likeness.
The shortcomings of a faith which is true, but not yet fully established, and bearing but little fruit, in no way lessens the fullness of the perfect work of the Savior, nor the certainty of His unchanging promise, guaranteeing eternal life unto whoever trusts in Him.
And so to rest in the Redeemer is the true way to obey Him; it is only when enjoying the peace of forgiveness that the soul is strong for the conflict. If there are any who abuse this blessed truth by giving themselves over unscrupulously to spiritual idleness, imagining that they can let the faith which they think they have take the place of the holiness which they have not, they should remember this solemn warning of the Apostle Paul, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24) and that of the Apostle John, “He that saith I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4) and that of the Lord Jesus Himself, “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matthew 7:19).
UNTO JESUS
And not at our faith. The last
device of the adversary, when he cannot make us look elsewhere, is to turn
our eyes from our Savior to our faith, and thus to discourage us if it is
weak, to fill us with pride if it is strong; and either way to weaken us. For
power does not come from the faith, but from the Savior by faith. It is not
looking at our look, it is “looking unto Jesus!”
UNTO JESUS
It is from Him and in Him, that we
learn to know, not only without danger, but for the well-being of our
souls, what it is good for us to know about the world and about ourselves,
our sorrows and our dangers, our resources and our victories: seeing
everything in its true light, because it is He Who shows them to us, and
that only at the time and in the proportion in which this knowledge will
produce in us the fruits of humility and wisdom, gratitude and courage,
watchfulness and prayer. All that it is desirable for us to know, the Lord
Jesus will teach us; all that we do not learn from Him, it is better for us
not to know.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
As long as we remain on the earth – unto Jesus from moment to moment, without
allowing ourselves to be distracted by memories of a past which we
should leave behind us, nor by occupation with a future of which we
know nothing.
UNTO JESUS NOW,
if we have never looked unto Him!
UNTO JESUS AFRESH,
if we have ceased doing so!
UNTO JESUS ONLY,
UNTO JESUS STILL,
UNTO JESUS ALWAYS,
With a gaze more and more
constant, more and more confident, “changed into the same image from glory
to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18), and thus awaiting the hour when he will call
us to pass from earth to Heaven, and from time to eternity—the promised
hour, the blessed hour, when at last “we shall be like Him, for we shall Him
as He is” (1 John 3:2).
Oh! the bitter pain and sorrow,
That a time could ever be,
When I let the Savior’s pity,
Plead in vain, and proudly answered:
“All of self, and none of Thee.”
Yet He found me: I beheld Him
Bleeding on th’accursed tree;
Heard Him pray: “Forgive them, Father”;
And my wistful heart said faintly,
“Some of self, and some of Thee..”
Day by day His tender mercy,
Healing, helping, full and free,
Sweet and strong and, ah! so patient,
Brought me lower, while I whispered,
“Less of self, and more of Thee..”
Higher than the highest heavens.
Deeper than the deepest sea;
Lord, Thy love at last has conquered;
Grant me now my supplication:
“None of self, and all of Thee!”
[ By Rev. Theodore Monod, Paris. Written by him in English during a series of Consecration meetings held at Broadlands, England, in July 1874. This hymn on Hymnary.org ]
Théodore Monod (1836 - 1921), the son of Frédéric Monod, was a French Protestant Pastor who trained for the ministry at Western Theological Seminary in Alleghany, PA. He was a popular speaker at the Keswick Campmeetings.
For more about Théodore Monod see Théodore Monod: French Preacher of Holiness.
His father, Frédéric Monod (1794-1863), was a protestant pastor in Paris, and principal editor of Archives du Christianisme.
His uncle, Adolphe Monod (1802-1856), is considered the foremost Protestant preacher in 19th-century France.