What ado there is to work up the heart to any liking of God? The reason is, we begin it of ourselves, and think to do it in our own strength; whereas it can only be done in faith, and the Spirit’s power. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
It is far easier to get a person to agree with the theology of Calvinism (sovereignty of God), since it is quite logical, than it is for the person to become a Calvinist of the heart and in the depths of the soul. A person can be a Pelagian in the inner man and still love the external doctrines of Calvinism. While that may seem like a ludicrous notion to many, it is simply a different application of a person cleaning the outside of the cup and inwardly being full of self-indulgence (Matthew 23:25). It is also an application of I Corinthians 8:1 where we are told that “we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.” An external knowledge of Calvinism is certainly possible which would do nothing but make the person arrogant apart from a work of God in giving that person His love in the soul. An external knowledge of God is also not inconsistent with the fallen heart that uses religion to manipulate God. We must be so careful.
While biblical Calvinism teaches us that apart from Christ we can do nothing good or spiritual, the unbiblical Calvinist will use the word or concept of “responsibility” to make room for efforts of the flesh to be counted as good. When Christ told us (John 15) that apart from Him we could do nothing, He was speaking in the context of the vine and the branch. There is no true spiritual fruit that can come from the branch unless it comes from the vine first, yet so many want to have a doctrinal knowledge (very important, thought) without a true submission in utter dependence upon the vine. This leaves the branch to doing things from itself which is the same thing as the flesh doing things in its own strength.
To the soul that has learned to look at itself and know its utter poverty before God and its utter helplessness as well, it knows that it cannot work up one bit of love for God or one bit of desire for God unless God does that work in the soul Himself. But there is a huge difference between a person that knows these things and even accepts them as true in the intellect and one that knows them because they have been taught by God in the depths of the soul. In applying a thought of Jonathan Edwards and using it in this context, it may be impressive to listen to a man lecture on the chemical properties of honey and why it would taste sweet. But if that man had never tasted honey, would he know as much about honey in a real and practical sense as one that had tasted honey many times? Such is the distinction between the one who holds to Calvinism and its doctrines and those who have tasted and see that the Lord is good.
It is true, however, that one can have a taste of the sweetness of the doctrines of Calvinism from the intellectual side alone. This is, however, something that can be used to deceive the soul. Human beings can have a delight in intellectual things and yet that not be a true, spiritual delight of a converted soul. Philosophers, writers, and scientists have a real delight in the work of their intellect. An unconverted theologian may have great delight in the things that he understands about doctrine and its intellectual ties with other doctrines or simply in his own brilliance, but that is not the same thing as the soul tasting the things of God by the work of the Spirit of God.
The fallen human soul is left in utter dependence upon God and His grace to do with it as He pleases. Because the Gospel is of grace alone, God is under no obligation to save the soul because of what the fallen soul is or can do. When God does convert a soul by His sovereign grace, He does not give the soul a power in and of itself to do good works in its own strength. The soul must learn that God alone is the origin and source for all true love (I John 4:7-8) and that it is in His sovereign hand to give this as He pleases. The soul must learn that it is the impoverished soul (Mat 5:3) that is blessed because it relies on nothing of self and gains all by grace from the kingdom of grace and of Christ. As long as the soul strives to work up a like and love for God from itself, it is looking for love in all the wrong places. The soul must look for nothing good from itself but to Christ and His Spirit to work these in the soul. In other words, the sovereignty of God extends far beyond doctrine (which does not denigrate the importance of doctrine) and into His sovereign rule and reign over all the movements and loves of the human heart.
God Loves... Himself 
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