The basis of the truest devotion and deepest loyalty to Jesus is not in a creed but in Himself.  There must be creeds.  Whatever a man believes is of course his creed.  Though as quickly as he puts it into words he narrows it.  Truth is always more than any statement of it.  Faith is always greater than our words about it.  We do not see Jesus with our outer eyes as did these men in the Gospel narrative.  We cannot put out our hands in any such way as Thomas did and know by the feel.  We must listen first to somebody telling about Him.

We listen either with eyes on the Book, or ears open to some faithful mutual friend of His and ours.  What we hear either way is a creed, somebody’s belief about Jesus.  So we come to Jesus first through a creed, somebody’s belief, somebody’s telling:  so we know there is a Jesus, and are drawn to Himself.  When we come to know Himself, always afterwards He is more than anything anybody ever told us, and more than we can ever tell.

The Eyes of the Heart.

Looking at Jesus—­what does it mean practically?  It means hearing about Him first, then actually appealing to Him, accepting His word as personal to one’s self, putting Him to the test in life, trusting His death to square up one’s sin score, trusting His power to clean the heart and sweeten the spirit, and stiffen the will.  It means holding the whole life up to His ideals.  Aye, it means more yet; something on His side, an answering look from Him.  There comes a consciousness within of His love and winsomeness.  That answering look of His holds us forever after His willing slaves, love’s slaves.  Paul speaks of the eyes of the heart.  It is with these eyes we look at Him, and receive His answering look.

There are different ways of looking at Jesus, degrees in looking.  Our experiences with Jesus affect the eyes of the heart.  When this same John as an old man was writing that first epistle, he seems to recall his experience in looking that first day.  He says “that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld."[1] From seeing with the eyes he had gone to earnest, thoughtful gazing, caught with the vision of what he saw.  That was John’s own experience.  It is everybody’s experience that gets a look at Jesus.  When the first looking sees something that catches fire within, then does the inner fire affect the eye and more is seen.

You have been in a strange city walking down the street, looking with interest at what is there.  But all at once you are caught by a sign that contains a familiar name, and at once a whole flood of memories is awakened.

The little Jericho Jew peering down from the low out-reaching sycamore branch was full of curiosity to see the Man that had changed his old friend Levi Matthew so strangely.  But that curiosity quickly changes into something far deeper and more tender as Jesus comes to abide in his own home.

That lonely-lifed, sore-hearted woman on the Nain road looked with startled wonder out of those wet eyes of hers as Jesus begins talking to her dead son.  What love and faith must have been in her looking as Jesus with fine touch brings her boy by the hand over to her warm embrace again!