It is better to be thinking of what God is, than of what we are. This looking at ourselves, at the bottom, is really pride—a want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for nothing. Till we see this, we never look quite away from self to God.
Sometimes, perhaps, the looking at our evil may be a partial instrument in teaching us it; but still even then, that is not all that is needed.
In looking to Christ, it is our privilege to forget ourselves.
True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all.
I am too bad to be worth thinking about; what I want is to forget myself, and to look to God, who is indeed worthy all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about ourselves, we may be quite sure that will do it.
If we can say (as in Rom. 7), that “in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing,” we have thought quite long enough about ourselves; let us then think about Him who thought about us with “thoughts of good and not of evil,” long before we thought of ourselves at all. Let us see what His thoughts of grace about us are, and take up the words of faith, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”