The Spirit of God is ministering at this present time life, righteousness, grace, liberty, and glory; but He gives us to find them only in Christ. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is shining for the sinner. Soon, soon that glory will blaze forth against the sinner. Then it will consume. Now it saves.
Have you made the acquaintance of this glorified Lord? Oh, you say, "I am doing.”
Turn to the Lord in glory! Let in the light from heaven! It shines through a rent veil, and is streaming forth to light your way to heaven. Yes, it is shining to blind you to this scene, so that, like Saul of old, you will need to be guided through it. (Acts 22:1111And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus. (Acts 22:11)).
You ask: "But must I not first see myself a sinner, and feel my need, before I look to Jesus?”
Did Saul of Tarsus "see" himself or the Lord in glory first? The deepest and truest knowledge of self is learned in gazing on the face of Jesus Christ. Why is He in the glory? Because man cast Him out—rejected Him; and now heaven opens and lets Him out to the sinner—the rejecter. He comes out in grace to shine upon poor, wretched sinners; and now, when one has seen Him, he can see no good in self—the darkness within and around is so deep that it may be almost felt—the world's glory dimmed and darkened forever.
Ah! if you have seen the face of Jesus—if you have witnessed the glory of God there—you will be able to count up every earthly advantage, and reckon all as loss for Christ. (Phil. 3:77But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. (Philippians 3:7).)
Heaven opened and Stephen looked in; he saw the glory of God and Jesus. Stephen's face shone; he then went in. Again the heavens opened, and Jesus came out and apprehended for that glory the murderer (Saul), as before He had taken the murdered one (Stephen). The heavens will again open, and Jesus will come out to take up and in His own. (1 Thess. 4.) They will open for the last time, but for judgment. (Rev. 19.)
May God in His rich mercy lead every reader of these pages to look away from self and from the best and brightest glories of the world, and look only "off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.”
"O fix our earnest gaze so wholly, Lord, on Thee; that, with Thy beauty occupied, we elsewhere none may see.”