Examining the Heart 46

The sun may as well be hindered from rising as Christ the Sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2). Look not a moment off Christ. Look not upon sin, but look upon Christ first. When you mourn for sin, if you see Christ then, away with it (Zech 12:10). In every duty look to Christ; before duty to pardon; in duty to assist; after duty to accept. Without this it is but carnal, careless duty. Do not legalize the gospel, as if part remained for you to do and suffer, and Christ were but half a Mediator and you must bear part of your own sin, and make part satisfaction. Let sin break your heart, but not your hope in the gospel. Thomas Willcox

The believer in Christ Jesus must look to Christ at all times and for all things. The gaze of the inward eye of the believer must always (in some sense and to some degree) be looking to Christ for grace and the strength of grace. The believer must look to Christ alone for justification, for sure, but also look to Christ alone for sanctification and Christ alone for holiness and Christ alone for strength in all things.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The heart of the believer is in what seems to be a constant battle, and in many ways it is. There is the battle with sin, with the fiery darts and accusations of the evil one, and then striving for holiness. There is the battle with self and pride in doing works by the strength of grace rather than the strength of self and pride. All men have wicked hearts and thought the bondage of sin is broken in redeemed man, he still cannot do one iota of good apart from receiving that from Christ.

The Gospel of grace alone saves men from self and pride by grace alone, yet this does not mean that grace stops. Men are saved by grace alone that they may live by Christ and His grace rather than self. Justifying faith is a gift of God by grace and yet faith must continue and it will only continue if it is upheld by the grace of God. Faith will never come from the will of a believer, but instead the only source of true faith is God. The opposite of faith is pride and self, which means that the more a person looks to self for faith the more opposite of true faith that really is. The encouragement is for the believer to always look to Christ regardless of what is going on and regardless of the circumstances surrounding the believer. There are no answers other than Christ.

The first example given of looking to Christ is that of a person mourning for sin. A person mourning for sin will either be focused on the sin itself, the inward pain or the idea of self-defeat, or the mourning soul will mourn as it looks at Christ and then the looking to Christ will take away the mourning. The point is that so many seem to think that there is something holy about a long mourning for sin and so they focus on the mourning, but the purpose of true mourning is to drive us from sin to Christ. The purpose of mourning for sin is not so that the sinner can suffer enough as if that makes up for part of the sin. That view tells us that there is something insufficient in the sufferings and cross of Christ.

It is important for believers to understand the fullness of Christ and the sufficiency of His cross and righteousness. The believer has no suffering for sin left, though indeed there may be suffering for other reasons. The believer needs to examine his or her heart and look for its attitudes and the secret things of the heart for what it is really doing during times of mourning and suffering. If it is deceived into thinking that the mourning and suffering is in some way meritorious to God, then the soul is not truly looking to a totally sufficient work of Christ. If the soul has the sneaking thought that it deserves something for the suffering or mourning it is going through, then it is not resting completely on the righteousness of Christ. If the soul is mourning and pride comes sneaking in that “I” am mourning in a right way and others are not, then that soul is not looking at the humble Savior. The heart is very deceptive and it takes a lot of humbling of the soul and seeking of the Lord to open our eyes to those deceptions. But that is another aspect of constantly looking to Christ for all things in all circumstances.

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