SELF VIEWED FROM MY OWN SIDE AND FROM CHRIST'S SIDE

SELF VIEWED FROM MY OWN SIDE AND FROM CHRIST’S SIDE

If I am occupied with myself, it must be either with my bad or with my good. Now if I am conscientious, and the more so I am, the occupation will be with my bad, and in a peculiar and a fatal way. Occupation with my bad engrosses more than with my good. There is really nothing good. “In my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7: 18). But if I see myself as Christ sees me, I am - because He is light which removes, not law which exacts - made to feel that whatever is seen is necessarily excluded, if not of Him; for the good of light is to expose things ^[p. 44] as they are, and hence a very different action goes on if I see myself in the light. I am sensible of the high and blessed deliverance vouchsafed to me. Christ is made more precious to me than ever. My heart turns to Him, rests in Him, dwells in Him, more fixedly than ever, because I see what He is as well as what I am; and it is by Him who exposes me that I know that I am set free from everything exposed. As one feels the smallest atom in one’s eye, so do I feel my least evils before Him. But He shews me that it is gone in the cross. I refuse and condemn it, and I am liberated, and I rejoice in Him. I know better than ever the righteousness of God to forgive and to cleanse me. When in the light, I never see evil, but in order to refuse it. In the other case, it is seeing and exploring, and deepening one’s mind in all the tortuous workings of one’s self: seeking exculpation, but only partially or occasionally finding any. When I see with the Lord, I see without any questioning; but as I see, I am relieved by Him, and He therefore engages my heart more deeply than ever. Myself fades in the distance; and I delight to dwell in and abide with Him, who, as I follow, is to me the light of life.