You are known as a Christian person, and go on hearing, praying, and receiving, yet miserable you may be. Look about you; did you ever yet see Christ to this day, in distinction from all other excellencies and righteousness in the world, and all of them falling before the majesty of His love and grace? Isaiah 2:17 Thomas Wilcox
In reading the writings of men in the past there appear to have been many who professed Christianity and yet did not have Christ in truth. Not only were there those who professed Christ but did not do even the externals of Christianity, there were many who professed Christ and went to hear preaching, prayed a lot, and did the external things that Christians do. The same thing is true today, though it would appear that there are far more today that do those things. It is (once again) possible to do all the external things that Christians are supposed to do and yet not have life in the soul. Not only is it possible to do those things, it is possible that those things will be used by the evil one and our own wicked hearts to build self-righteousness and so deception.
The goal of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is His own glory and not so that men may boast in their own righteousness and efforts. The goal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to manifest the glory of God in and through Christ and to debase the proud hearts of men. This should make it self-evident that men who preach and those who go to hear preaching should seek Christ by the preaching and the hearing of the preaching rather than use that as an opportunity to exalt self. In prayer the goal must not be for the things of self and for the benefits of self (at least primarily), but the primary goal of prayer should be to seek God and His glory. The primary reason God gives things to people is for His own glory which shows us that we should receive all things for that goal. The goal must not be the self-righteousness, pride, and seeking of honor for self; but the glory of God.
It is a terrible deception when people are told and taught to hear, pray, study the Bible and so on and yet not taught the real goal of doing those things. When those things (means of grace) are not taught to people as ways to seek Christ and to behold Him in His glory, they will become means of self-righteousness and means for pride and self-deception. Again, this is a terrible deception and it is carried out across the world in so many places. Yes, Christians are to pray, but it is not doing what people think of as prayer, but rather it is to behold His glory and then seek God in prayer.
The two goals of prayer and the rest of the means of grace are polar opposites in what they seek as a goal, but also the view of God that is behind and underneath them. God and His glory is the greatest good for God to seek and also for His people to seek. When people seek themselves in prayer or in the means of grace, they are committing the great evil of idolatry. When people think they are seeking God by their duties rather than by the power of grace seeking grace, they are looking to the arm of flesh and self to do what grace alone can do. In order to seek God by grace and for grace, it takes the glory of grace to shine in the eyes of the soul to see Christ as greater than all the excellencies of the world and His righteousness as the only true righteousness that there is. In the light of His excellencies all the things of the world appear as dust and ashes. In light of the glory of His righteousness, all the righteousness that self can raise up is seen as filthy rags. The soul must behold Christ or it will grind away in the dirt and mire of the world for its short pleasures and for muddy coverings rather than true righteousness.
Isaiah 2:17 The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased; And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, 18 But the idols will completely vanish. 19 Men will go into caves of the rocks And into holes of the ground Before the terror of the LORD And the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble. 20 In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats Their idols of silver and their idols of gold, Which they made for themselves to worship, 21 In order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs Before the terror of the LORD and the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble. 22 Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?
God Loves... Himself 
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