Look More Steadily at Jesus

A precious remedy against an old disease.

• That disease is trouble of heart.
• That remedy is faith.

Faith in the Lord Jesus is the only sure medicine for troubled hearts.

• To believe more thoroughly, 
• trust more entirely,
• rest more unreservedly,
• lay hold more firmly,
• lean back more completely -

This is the prescription which my Master urges on the attention of all His disciples.

• No doubt the members of that little band of disciples who sat around the table at the last supper, had believed already.
• They had proved the reality of their faith by giving up everything for Christ's sake.

Yet what does their Lord say to them here?

• Once more He presses on them the old lesson, the lesson with which they first began -
• "Believe!  Believe more!  Believe on Me!" (Isaiah 26:3)

Never let me forget that there are degrees of faith, and that there is a wide difference between weak and strong believers.

• The weakest faith is enough to give a man a saving interest in Christ, and ought not to be despised, 
• but it will not give a person such inward comfort as a strong faith.

Vagueness and dimness of perception are the defect of weak believers.

• They do not see clearly what they believe and why they believe.
• In such cases more faith is the one thing needed.
• Like Peter on the water, I need to look more steadily at Jesus, and less at the waves and wind.

Is it not written, "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You"? (Isaiah 26:3)

Adapted Excerpt From The Gospel of John by J.C. Ryle