Men talk bravely of believing whilst whole and sound; few know it. Christ is the mystery of the Scripture; grace the mystery of Christ. Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of your own to it, and you spoil it. Christ will not so much as look at it for believing. When you believe and come to Christ, you must leave behind you your own righteousness, and bring nothing but your sin: (Oh, that is hard!) leave behind all your holiness, sanctification, duties, humblings, and so on; and bring nothing but your wants [lacks] and your miseries, or else Christ is not fit for you, nor you for Christ. Christ will be a pure Redeemer and Mediator, and you must be an undone sinner, or Christ and you will never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world to take Christ alone for righteousness; that is to acknowledge Him Christ. Join anything to Him of your own, and you un-Christ Him. Thomas Willcox
Coming to Christ alone for righteousness is the hardest thing in the world. This is beyond the power of a proud heart that is always looking to self for something and is always looking to some form of self-righteousness to lean on. No amount of words can describe the difficulty of this, but those who have seen something of their own hearts and know how impossible it is to look to Christ alone rather than something of self other than by grace alone know something of what is being spoken of here. The heart naturally gravitates toward the self and trust in self for something, even if it is just a little something. The believer that has fought with his or her own heart knows that the heart will turn to self and pride over and over again and that there is no relaxing the guard over the heart. But the unbeliever, who simply has no real battle between the flesh and the Spirit, has no idea of the impossibility of winning this battle other than by grace alone.
It seems as if the whole world has gone after the great goddess of free-will and the strength of self. In modern evangelism, whether one thinks one is Reformed or other, it appears that the goal is to get someone to pray a prayer of faith or make an act of the will. The idea of teaching the sinner that s/he must go to God and take Christ alone for righteousness appears foreign to them. The idea of teaching sinners that they must come to Christ as Redeemer as an undone sinner is foreign to them. They may say that they don’t want to put anything between the sinner and Christ, but what they are really doing is ignoring what is already between the sinner and Christ. There is an insurmountable wall of pride, self, and self-righteousness. The sinner must come to Christ undone and with nothing in his hand or heart to trust in and ask for grace alone. For the modern evangelists, however, the goal is to argue the person into making a decision of the so-called ‘free-will’ though they don’t call it that.
In evangelism the focus is either on the ability of God or the ability of man. If we don’t stress the inability of man and the ability of God in saving by grace alone, we are stressing the ability of man because that is all that man will hear. If we are not crystal clear about the inability of man to save himself and the nature of sovereign grace which saves by grace alone to the glory of God alone, man will think he can contribute something himself and will trust in what he is doing. That little something that the man thinks he can do and perhaps has done is a form of self-righteousness regardless of what term it falls under. Of necessity that little something is something man thinks that he has done and that God has accepted. This is ever so dangerous as it keeps men from coming to Christ naked and undone in themselves and looking to grace alone to do the work of salvation.
But this is also true for believers who are growing in their knowledge of sin and have a defective view of sanctification. Sinners are saved by the blood and righteousness of Christ alone by grace alone. Oh how poor sinners need to see that it is faith in Christ that they must have which also comes by grace alone. While it is no excuse for sinners to immerse themselves into sin and it is not a reason to sin because sinners are under grace, yet sinners need to grasp the fact that in this life they will never be other than vile and wretched sinners. The more they grow in true holiness the more sin and wretchedness they will see in their own hearts. These believing sinners must see that instead of trying to come to God based on their own supposed self-righteousness and perhaps being free (more or less) from outward sin, they are to come naked and undone to the living God because Christ is accepted and all who are in Him are accepted on His account. It is correct that true believers will have good works and they must grow in holiness, but we must not confuse good works and true holiness with the basis we come to God on. We must also not get the idea that good works and holiness somehow make us holy. No, we are utterly dependent on Christ and His righteousness alone. Sinners who are weighed down and stricken need to behold Christ!
God Loves... Himself 
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