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).
Is love for God or any liking of or about God something we can work up in our own strength and produce from our own flesh? In many ways this is at the heart of the debate between free-will thinking and Reformed thinking. It is at the heart of the essence of the difference between Arminianism and Calvinism. The Greatest Commandment is to love God with all of the heart, mind, soul, and strength. The question, then, is whether one can love God in his own strength or must one have true faith and the power of the Spirit to do so. The question can also be seen in the distinction between living by grace and living in our own strength to live in faith on Christ. It is hard to understand how one can have can trust in self to have faith and then live by that faith and that not be another way to live by works or a work (faith). Do I live by a faith that comes be grace and then grace works through that faith or do I live by a faith that I work up and then work by that faith?
3rd. Augustinian.—Which was adopted by all the original Protestant Churches, Lutheran and Reformed. (a.) Man is by nature so entirely depraved in his moral nature as to be totally unable to do any thing spiritually good, or in any degree to begin or dispose himself thereto. (b.) That even under the exciting and suasory influences of divine grace the will of man is totally unable to act aright in co-operation with grace, until after the will itself is by the energy of grace radically and permanently renewed. (c.) Even after the renewal of the will it ever continues dependent upon divine grace to prompt, direct, and enable it in the performance of every good work. A.A. Hodge
Once again we look at the word “responsibility.” The Arminian has the concept that what God commands man can respond with some ability to do. The historic Calvinist says that God commands us and that we have cannot respond with ability but that God commands us in order to show us what we should do rather than what we can do. So the command of God shows us that we cannot keep His commands and so this should drive us to Christ both for forgiveness but also power and ability to love God and keep His commands. As can be seen this is in line with the statement of A.A. Hodge above. Even the redeemed man “continues dependent upon divine grace to prompt, direct, and enable it in the performance of every good work.” Man has no ability to love God beyond what grace works in the heart of man and enables man to perform. It is by grace alone that man can love and obey God and this should drive man to utter dependence upon God for the slightest amount of obedience rather than to try and work these things up in his own power and strength.
Love for God and doing any work out of love for God is a work of the Spirit of God and is not something that is in the power of man to do. Love is not a human activity or even a human feeling in and of itself, but all true love has its origin and source from God as can be seen from the passage just below.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love (I John 4).
Why should a believer love another believer? It is because love is from God. The text tells us that “everyone” who loves is born of God and knows God, but the one who does not love does not know God. The work “know” in this context means more than just knowing about God, but it is the person that has God dwelling and abiding in him or her and is receiving from God. Every single person that truly loves is a person born of God and knows God. For a soul to love God in truth and in spirit is for that person to be a new creature in Christ and for that person to receive a heart of love and the power of love from God. Love is a divine activity and is not in the power of any human being or any human strength to love. Starting from our own strength in order to try to like and love God is to start from precisely the wrong location and will end in self-deception. The humble receive grace and true love in the soul can only be there and can only act by grace and grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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