. All that we see within is foul,
ugly, and grim. Frank Hall. You are complete
in Him. Colossians 2 10. O desponding
Christian, is not your grief caused by looking within yourself?
is not that miserable feeling of failure and disappointment
caused by your strange fixation upon your hollow heart of iniquity. You look within, hoping to find
something good, something pure, something precious, something
clean. But what do you see? Nothing
but sin. To stare into oneself is to stare
into a bottomless pit of despair and hopelessness. The human heart
is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17, 9. Will we ever
learn this? There is nothing within us to
give us hope, rest or peace. Have we ever found anything within
us that gave us joy? Of course not. Then why do we
continue to stare into the darkness? All that we see within is foul,
ugly, and grim. One glance within ought to sicken
us. We would sooner find diamonds
in a dunghill or roses growing in a sewer than find goodness
dwelling within. In ourselves, we are sinful,
guilty, and vile. But bless God forever. Our standing
before God is not in ourselves. It is in Christ. He is our salvation,
our righteousness, our hope, our holiness, and our acceptance
with God. Change the direction of your
gaze, and look up. Stop staring into the empty void
of your heart, and fix your eyes upon Jesus your Lord, in whom
all fullness dwells. Our hope is not within, but without,
seated at the right hand of the Father. Lift up your head that
is bowed down with guilt and shame. Behold Christ your Savior. Behold your glorious Redeemer. Bid sorrow goodbye and fear depart. Rejoice, for you are complete
in Him. Believers are perfect in Christ. To be complete in Christ is to
be perfect in Christ. Perfect is not something that
we will be or strive to be, but something that we are right now
by virtue of our eternal union with God's darling Son. Brothers
and sisters in Christ, we are by the free grace of God complete
in Christ our Savior. We lack nothing. All that He
is, we are in Him. All that He has, we have in Him. All that He has done, we've done
in Him. We possess the infinite fullness
of eternal life and everlasting salvation in Jesus Christ our
Lord. We are completely righteous in
Him. We are completely holy in Him. We are completely forgiven in
Him. We are completely accepted in
Him. We are completely, everlastingly,
perfectly sinless in Him. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
Hebrews 12, 2. For every look at self Take ten
looks at Christ. Robert Murray McCheney