The  moralist, the formalist, the worldling, and the sensualist!

(Thomas Reade, "Christian Meditations")  LISTEN to Audio!  Download Audio

"The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." Romans 8:7

The enmity of the carnal mind is ever directed against the work of Christ.

The moralist, the formalist, the worldling, and the sensualist, are alike opposed to the humbling, purifying doctrines of the Cross!

Holiness is offensive to the unrenewed mind.

The more spiritual any religious exercise or book is—the more it is disliked. Give some truly scriptural volume to a lover of the world—and how will he receive it? After glancing his eyes over a few of its pages, he will lay it down with a contemptuous smile. He will pity the enthusiast who wrote it, and the enthusiast who admires it.

Give him some newly launched novel, some work replete with wit and humor, and he will devour its contents, even though it requires the midnight oil to finish it. Here, all his heart is engaged, all his passions are excited; imagination ads wings to his flight, and, soaring into the realms of fancy, into the fairy land of unreal life—he sinks into his slumbers, regardless whether he awakes in time or in eternity!

Luke 18:11-14
"The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'  

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner!'  

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."