When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients, or any previous qualifications of our own, will poison and corrupt faith. He that builds upon duties, graces, etc., knows not the merits of Christ. This makes believing so hard, so far above nature. If you believe, you must every day renounce as dung and dross (Phil 3:7-8) your privileges, your obedience, your baptism, your sanctification, your duties, your graces, your tears, your meltings, your humblings, and nothing but Christ must be held up. Every day your workings, your self-sufficiency must be destroyed. You must take all out of God’s hand. Christ is the gift of God (John 4:10). Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). Pardon, a free gift (Isa 45:22). Ah, how nature storms, frets, rages at this, that all is of gilt [superficial brilliance or gloss] and it can purchase nothing with its actings and tears and duties, that all workings are excluded, and of no value in heaven. Thomas Willcox
How difficult it is for proud and self-sufficient man to hear that all of his workings and all of his self-sufficiency must be destroyed. Man would prefer to do all he can and have Christ do the rest, or perhaps man would prefer to do all he can and have grace make up for what he lacks. But that is not biblical grace and that is not the Gospel nor is it biblical sanctification. The truth of the matter is that self must not just be denied a few things here and there, but self must be denied all rights and its right to have a voice in anything. Self must be denied the right to live at all.
Galatians 2:19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
The Law, when rightly understood, brings man to see that he cannot earn any righteousness before God at all and that he must die to the Law as a way of righteousness. Man must die to the Law “so that” he “might live to God.” Until the Law has worked in the heart of man to the degree that man has died to the Law as a way of righteousness and all of his ability to keep it, he will not be living to God. Man must die in order that he may live to God. This is such a profound statement by Paul that should be declared to every professing church under the sun. Man is not sufficient to earn the slightest merit or righteousness before God by the Law and so man should die to his pride and self-sufficiency. Until man has died to the Law he cannot life to God. This has tremendous ramifications for justification, of course, but also sanctification.
Each day, Willcox tells us, our workings and our self-sufficiency must be destroyed. In the language of Paul, each day we must die to the Law so that we may live to God. It must be noted that self-sufficiency and keeping the Law go hand in hand. As long as the soul thinks it can obtain merit and righteousness by keeping the Law, it will look to its own sufficiency. But when the self dies to keeping the Law, it will look to Christ and live to God by living on what God feeds the soul by grace. It is when we die to the Law that we can say that in some way we have been crucified with Christ “and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” When the soul is crucified with Christ and dies to the Law, then it lives to God because now Christ lives in that soul. That soul is now able to live by faith in the Son of God because it no longer attempts to live by the Law as a means of obtaining life.
Christ died in order to purchase grace for His people and all sinners are left to obtain life from the Law by their own works or from Christ by grace alone. For those who seek to obtain some righteousness of their own from the Law, that is to say that Christ died needlessly. There are two polar opposites set out here as ways to obtain righteousness and life. One is by the Law, whether totally or in part, and the other way is by Christ alone. Each and every day man must die to his ability to work righteousness in accordance with the Law and he must die to self-sufficiency. It is only when he thus dies that he is able to live by faith in Christ and live to God.
God Loves... Himself 
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