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
Not only must man die to his own workings and self-sufficiency, but He must take all He obtains in the spiritual realm from the hand of God as grace alone. While it is also true that God gives man gifts in the physical realm as well, for the moment we will be directing our thoughts to the spiritual realm. All spiritual gifts, all spiritual blessings, and all spiritual riches are in Christ and only in Christ. They will only come to those who are in Christ and they only come by grace and grace alone. Grace cannot be dispensed by anyone but by Christ and grace is not in the hands of any man to give to another.
It seems so common in the modern day for men to think that they are sufficient to obtain faith by the power of their own wills. It is also common for men to think that by coming up with faith by their own power that they can have Christ and pardon of sin. But men must die to their own sufficiency in these matters as well as all else if they are to live by grace alone. How can man be said to rely on Christ alone if man has the power to obtain Christ by an act of his own will? How can man be said to rely on Christ alone if man has the power to obtain faith by his own will and so get Christ and pardon for sin? No, all of these things must come to the soul by grace or they come to the soul by the power of the soul itself.
This fact must be driven home to sinners over and over again. Sinners have no sufficiency in themselves and sinners have no power to obtain faith for themselves. Sinners are utterly unable to obtain anything in the spiritual realm by their own power and it must come to them by grace alone. This is a hard teaching according to many, but in reality it is a message that will free sinners from bondage to self and sin. The whole of salvation is by grace and grace alone. The Gospel is all of grace and that from beginning to end. The Gospel is all of Christ and nothing but Christ and Him alone.
The soul must die to its own sufficiency in order that it may receive all by grace and that purchased by Christ. This cannot be repeated too much and cannot be stressed too much. The ability of man cannot stand in the presence of Christ and His grace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not part Christ and part man, but it is all of the Person and works of Christ. Man must give up his sufficiency and all of his own ability in order to receive faith, grace, Christ and the pardon of sin.
But can man give up this sufficiency in his own power? No, it is the grace of Christ that must free man from his own self-sufficiency as well. It is the grace of Christ that must take man who is in bondage to the devil, self, and pride and free him from those self-sufficient things and cast him at the foot of the cross. It is the grace of Christ that takes sinners and teaches them in the inner man that they must die to all of their own ability and look to Christ and Christ alone. It takes grace to deliver man from self to grace. Man has no power to do that.
In all of this man must examine his own heart. The heart will hide behind and underneath religious language to maintain self and its own sufficiency. The deceitful heart is always looking for ways to bring the self-sufficiency of self in and make room for it. But man must be on the alert and constantly crying out to God to open his eyes to those little vipers in his own heart that love self and pride and want to hide so that it will not have to die to its darling sin. Oh how humbling it is to realize that when I am weak in faith I must obtain more faith from Christ rather than work it up in self. How humbling it is to realize that I cannot repent unless it is granted me from Christ. How the soul must look to grace to examine it in that light rather than any other light,
God Loves... Himself 
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