Turning Our Eyes On Jesus

 We must look off this world, in respect of its sinful pleasures. Jude tells us, “such as are sensual have not the Spirit,” Jude, ver 19. WE cannot fixedly look on pleasures, and look on Jesus at once. Job tells us, “They that take up the tumbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ, that spend their days in mirth,” are the same that say unto God, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways; what is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit should we have if we pray to him? Job 21: 12, 13, 14, 15. We have a lively example of this in Augustine’s conversion; he would indeed have had Christ and his pleasures too, but when he saw it could not be, oh! What conflicts were within him! In his orchard, (as he tells us in his book of confessions,) all his pleasures past represented themselves before his eyes, saying What, wilt thou depart from us forever, and shall we be no more with thee forever? O Lord, (saith Augustine, writing his confession), turn away my mind from thinking that which they objected to my soul! What filth! What shameful pleasures did they lay before mine eyes! At length, after this combat, a shower of tears came from him, and casting himself on the ground under a fig-tree, he cries it out, O lord, how long, how long shall I say, To-morrow, to-morrow? Why not, To-day, Lord, why not, To-day? Why should there not be an end to of my filthy life even at this hour? Immediately after this, he heard a voice, as if it has been a boy or girl, singing by, Take up and read, take up and read: and thereupon opening his Bible, that lay by him at hand, he read in silence the first chapter that offered itself, wherein was written, “Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Rom 13:13-14. Further than this sentence, I would not read (saith Augustine), neither indeed was it needful, for presently, as if light has been poured into my heart, all the darkness of my doubtfulness fled away. His eye was now taken off pleasures, and fore ever after it was set on Jesus.
—Isaac Ambrose—”Looking unto Jesus” pp. 20