Man's Religion and God's Religion

For My New Year's Resolution!

My prayer for me and you is that God would work in our hearts and teach us how to be incurably desperate for Him. I don't know about you but I have such a thirst for God to make unceasingly, a remnant broken and humble at His feet.  (to find out why this short prayer, read January 1 post) 

This is an excerpt from the new uploaded Kindle which contains all the 11 volumes of J. C. Philpot's quotes

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"That no flesh should glory in His presence."
1 Corinthians 1:29

Man's religion is to build up the creature. 
God's religion is to throw the creature down in
the dust of self-abasement, and to glorify Christ.

What a mystery are you! 
"So I find this law at work—When I want to do
good, evil is right there with me." Rom. 7:21

Are you not often a mystery to yourself?

Warm one moment—cold the next!

Abasing yourself one hour—
exalting yourself the following!

Loving the world, full of it, steeped up to
your head in it today—crying, groaning, and
sighing for a sweet manifestation of the love
of God tomorrow!

Brought down to nothingness, covered with
shame and confusion, on your knees before
you leave your room—filled with pride and self
importance before you have got down stairs!

Despising the world, and willing to give it all
up for one taste of the love of Jesus when in
solitude—trying to grasp it with both hands
when in business!

What a mystery are you! 

Touched by love—and stung with hatred!

Possessing a little wisdom—and a great deal of folly!

Earthly minded—and yet having the affections in heaven!

Pressing forward—and lagging behind!

Full of sloth—and yet taking the kingdom with violence!

And thus the Spirit, by a process which we may feel
but cannot adequately describe—leads us into the
mystery of the two natures perpetually struggling
and striving against each other in the same bosom.
So that one man cannot more differ from another,
than the same man differs from himself. 

But the mystery of the kingdom of heaven is this—
that our carnal mind undergoes no alteration, but
maintains a perpetual war with grace. And thus,
the deeper we sink in self abasement under a
sense of our vileness, the higher we rise in a
knowledge of Christ, and the blacker we are in
our own view—the more lovely does Jesus appear.

What stupid blockheads!

"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them.
Matthew 15:16

What lessons we need day by day to teach
us anything aright, and how it is for the most
part, "line upon line, line upon line—here a
little, and there a little." O . . .
what slow learners!
what dull, forgetful scholars!
what ignoramuses!
what stupid blockheads!
what stubborn pupils!

Surely no scholar at a school, old or young,
could learn so little of natural things as we seem

to have learned of spiritual things after . . .
so many years instruction,
so many chapters read,
so many sermons heard,  so many prayers put up,
so much talking about religion.

How small, how weak is the amount of
growth—compared with all we have read
and heard and talked about!

But it is a mercy that the Lord saves whom
He will save—and that we are saved by free
grace—and free grace alone!

Take me as I am with all my sin and shame

"Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;
save me, and I shall be saved." Jer. 17:14

Here is this sin! Save me from it!

Here is this snare! Break it to pieces!

Here is this lust! Lord, subdue it!

Here is this temptation! Deliver me out of it!

Here is my proud heart! Lord, humble it!

Here is my unbelieving heart! Take it away,
and give me faith; give me submission to
Your mind and will.

Take me as I am with all my sin and
shame and work in me everything well
pleasing in Your sight.

Nothing but a huge clod of dust

"Set your affection on things above—not
on things on the earth." Colossians 3:2

Everything upon earth, as viewed by the eyes
of the Majesty of heaven—is base and paltry.

Earth is after all, nothing but a huge clod of
dust, and as such, as insignificant in the eyes
of its Maker as the small dust of the balance,
or the drop of the bucket.

What, then, are . . .
its highest objects,
its loftiest aims,
its grandest pursuits,
its noblest employments,
in the sight of Him who inhabits
eternity; but base and worthless?

Vanity is stamped on all earth's attainments.

All earthly pursuits and high accomplishments . . .
wealth,
rank,
learning,
power, or
pleasure,
end in death!

The breath of God's displeasure soon
lays low in the grave all that is rich
and mighty, high and proud.

But that effectual work of grace on the heart,
whereby the chosen vessels of mercy are
delivered from the power of darkness and
translated into the kingdom of God's dear
Son, calls them out of . . .
those low, groveling pursuits,
those earthly toys,
those base and sensual lusts in which other
men seek at once their happiness and their ruin.

How can they escape? 

"He will keep the feet of His saints."
1 Samuel 2:9

The Lord sees His poor scattered pilgrims
traveling through a valley of tears—journeying
through a waste-howling wilderness—a path
beset with baits, traps, and snares in every
direction.

How can they escape? 

Why, the Lord 'keeps their feet'. He carries them
through every rough place—as a tender parent
carries a little child. When about to fall—He
graciously lays His everlasting arms underneath
them. And when tottering and stumbling, and
their feet ready to slip—He mercifully upholds
them from falling altogether.

But do you think that He has not different ways
for different feet? The God of creation has not
made two flowers, nor two leaves upon a tree
alike—and will He cause all His people to walk
in precisely the same path? No. We have . . .
each our path,
each our troubles,
each our trials,
each peculiar traps and snares laid for our feet.

And the wisdom of the all-wise God is shown by His
eyes being in every place—marking the footsteps of
every pilgrim—suiting His remedies to meet their
individual case and necessity—appearing for them
when nobody else could do them any good—watching
so tenderly over them, as though the eyes of His
affection were bent on one individual—and carefully
noting the goings of each, as though all the powers
of the Godhead were concentrated on that one
person to keep him from harm!

God will meet all your needs

"And my God will meet all your needs according
to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19

Until we are brought into the depths of poverty,
we shall never know nor value Christ's riches.

If, then, you are a child of God, a poor and
needy soul, a tempted and tried believer in
Christ, "God will meet all your needs."

They may be very great.

It may seem to you, sometimes, as though there
were not upon all the face of the earth such a
wretch as you—as though there never could be
a child of God in your state . . .
so dark,
so stupid,
so blind and ignorant,
so proud and worldly,
so presumptuous and hypocritical,
so continually backsliding after idols,
so continually doing things that you
know are hateful in God's sight.

But whatever your need be—it is not beyond the
reach of divine supply! And the deeper your need,
the more is Jesus glorified in supplying it.

Do not say then, that . . .
your case is too bad,
your needs are too many,
your perplexities too great,
your temptations too powerful.

No case can be too bad!

No temptations can be too powerful!

No sin can be too black!

No perplexity can be too hard!

No state in which the soul can get, is beyond
the reach of the almighty and compassionate
love, that burns in the breast of the Redeemer!