Letters to a Soul Seeking Jesus I: Know Your Corruption
According to promise, I sit down to talk with you a little concerning the great things of an eternal world. How kind it is in God that He has given us such an easy way of communicating our thoughts, even at a distance! My only reason for writing to you is, that I may direct your soul to Jesus, the sinner's friend. "This man receives sinners." I would wish much to know that you were truly united to Christ; and then, come life, come death, you will be truly and eternally happy. Do you think you have been convinced of sin? This is the Holy Spirit's work, and His first work upon the soul. (John 16:8; Acts 2:37 and 21:29-30). If you did not know your body was dangerously ill, you would never have sent for your physician; and so you will never go to Christ, the heavenly Physician, unless you feel that your soul is sick even unto death. Oh, pray for deep discoveries of your real state by nature and by practice! The world will say you are an innocent and harmless girl; do not believe them. The world is a liar. Pray to see yourself exactly as God sees you; pray to know the worth of your soul. Have you seen yourself vile, as Job saw himself? (Job 11:3,5 and 13:5,6); undone, as Isaiah saw himself? (Isa. 6:1,5). Have you experienced anything like Psalm 51? I do not wish you to feign humility before God, nor to use expressions of self-abhorrence, which you do not feel; but oh, pray that the Holy Spirit may let you see the very reality of your natural condition before God! I seldom get more than a glance at the true state of my soul in its naked self. But when I do, then I see that I am wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (Rev. 3:17). I believe every member of our body has been a servant of sin (Rom. 3:13,18)—throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet, eyes. Every faculty of our mind is polluted (Gen. 6:5). Besides, you have long neglected the great salvation; you have been gainsaying and disobedient. Oh that you were brought to pass sentence on yourself—guilty of all!
Hear what a dear believer writes of himself: "My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable, and swallowing up all thought an imagination, like an infinite flood, or mountains over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite. When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deep, and yet it seems to me that my conviction of sin is exceedingly small and faint." Perhaps you will ask, Why do you wish me to have such a discovery of my lost condition? I answer, that you may be broken off from all schemes of self-righteousness; that you may never look into your poor guilty soul to recommend you to God; and that you may joyfully accept of the Lord Jesus Christ, who obeyed and died for sinners. Oh that your heart may cleave to Christ! May you forsake all, and follow Jesus Christ. Count everything loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. You never will stand righteous before God in yourself. You are welcome this day to stand righteous before God in Jesus. Pray over Phil. 3:7,9. I will try and pray for you. Grace be with you.
Your friend in Jesus.
Robert Murray M'Cheyne