Discussing Assurance - Looking Too Much at your own Heart

Again we continue with Discussing issues that may cause a lack of assurance in our lives. (find out more about this series here)

LOOKING TOO MUCH IN AT YOUR OWN HEART
5. Looking too much in at your own heart, and too little out to Christ and His finished work.
If you keep constantly looking at your own heart, you will find things there not likely to give you assurance. You will find the flesh lusting against the spirit. David said:
"Iniquities prevail against me; as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away." (Psalm 65: 3)

Paul said:
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7: 24)
But immedi¬ately he added, verse 25:
"I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

These two verses should never be separated. God has joined them together, and no man should put them asunder.
Read also Galatians 5: 16, 17. The Revised Version brings out the meaning clearly. It tells us that as long as we live, the flesh in us will lust against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, but that the Spirit is much stronger than the flesh, and that therefore we should not be beaten, but should overcome.

“Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would."

Christian reader, you have the flesh still in you; but you have one stronger than the flesh or the devil in you, and with you - even Christ Jesus. He is with you, and in you, by His Spirit, every day and hour; and He dwells in you for the very purpose of enabling you to overcome sin, and live a holy life.

Thank God that you have a power working in you able to overcome the world, and the flesh, and the devil. If you forget Him, and do not make use of Him, you will certainly be beaten, and fall. If you depend on Him, He will enable you to stand.

John Owen says:
"Never any person did or shall perish by the power of any lust, sin, or corruption, who could raise his soul by faith to an expectation of relief from Jesus Christ."

Whenever, then, you take one look at yourself, take immediately ten looks at Christ. That is the way to have assurance, and holiness as well. Have you not found this, that on the day when you kept looking at your own heart, and did not look at Christ, you had no assurance, whereas on the day when you kept "looking off unto Jesus," your peace flowed as a river? So it will be while you live.
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I think what Patton says here is very true. We can be so busy looking at our own hearts, seeing our own sinfulness & corruption; our old nature. We can be taken up with concerns over ourselves - our sinful nature, our struggles of faith etc... And neglect to be looking to Jesus the perfecter & finisher of our faith.

What advice would you give here?