Looking Unto Jesus

The other day I decided to tackle the boxes of piano/violin/viola/ocarina/harmonica music that have been hiding behind the couch since the day we moved in.  All that stuff belongs downstairs with the piano, but there really isn't a place to store it other than in the cardboard boxes it was all moved in.  Over the weeks and months since we moved, the music has been rifled though and mixed with the contents of other boxes that have also been hiding back there, open boxes of audio recordings, new Bibles, good reads for Christians and lost people, ancient sermon notes, and an inch of dust.  The paper stuff seemed to be multiplying, and, fearing it would gradually take over this end of the house, I reached way down into my reserves of motivation and initiative.  Summoning all that was necessary to do a one-hour organizing chore, I dived in.  

And I was rewarded!  A piece of paper that had been lost between Leila Fletcher Piano Course, Level 1 (with cover missing) and Babylon Mystery Religion fluttered to the ground.  An ancient, yellowed grocery list, with a few unidentifiable phone numbers scratched in, and the word "surgery".  Something caused me to turn it over.  (Who would check the back side of a grocery list?  Why didn't I get the gene that says, "Trash.  Throw It Out?")  A sharp intake of breath.  Lo!  It was my dearly beloved, and lost (but not irreplaceable) copy of Charles Spurgeon's devotional from his Morning and Evening, "Looking unto Jesus", from Hebrews 12:2.  It is now taped inside my Bible for safe-keeping. These words on the sufficiency of Christ speaks volumes to me:

It is ever the Holy Spirit's work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan's work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, "Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus." All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: he tells us that we are nothing, but that "Christ is all in all." Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee-it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee-it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument-it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus." Keep thine eye simply on him; let his death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to him; when thou liest down at night look to him. Oh! let not thy hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail thee.

"My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness:
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name." 

Looking unto Jesus...

Hebrew 12:2