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
The selfish and proud heart of man does not like to be undone. It will fight and fume against the teaching of how undone it is, but even when it bows to the teaching of Scripture as true it will still fight as darling sins are exposed by the Spirit of God. How the nature of man will utterly rage at those who teach him that he cannot do one good thing unless it comes from Christ first. How man will rage at those who teach him that all of his works and tears and religious actions and motions of heart are nothing but a bad heart glossed over.
The proud heart of man is so loathe to turn from all the good he has done and bow to God as the reality sinks home that all he has ever done is sinful and his best of works is as filthy rags. The heart of man will fight the sinking feeling as it comes to the knowledge that the best of works that he has ever done is vile and unclean before God as it came from an idolatrous heart that was full of pride and self. Oh the horror of the realization of religious man to realize that all of his religious duties and actions, though they may have been many, were nothing but religious pride and vile in the sight of a thrice holy God.
Imagine a man that was a leader in his church or perhaps even a minister. He might have thought of himself in many ways, but he never understood before how vile all of his preaching and his teaching was. He thought of his preaching and his teaching as orthodox, and perhaps they were, but if they did not come from Christ alone then they came from his flesh. How utterly destitute that man would be upon his eyes being opened to that. But we can also a Sunday School teacher or a regular church attendee or a very moral person when their eyes are opened to behold their vile and wicked hearts and to see that all of their religious actions and their moral actions were nothing but dung glossed over. How they would want to vomit as they fell in agony of soul in seeing all of their self-righteousness in what they had done.
But man must come to this. He must come to see that all of his tears and his works that did not come from Christ have utterly no value in heaven at all. Everything must come from Christ or it is sin. It does not matter what it is or how religious it is, if it did not come from Christ first it has no value in heaven. Even more, if the person does not have Christ in truth and in reality that person will suffer for eternity for such vile sins.
But again, all the works of men and all the praise of man’s lips and all the high feelings man thinks that he had for God are vile and wretched works of the flesh if they did not come from Christ by grace. The living God looks down and it is Christ alone that He is pleased with. All who have Christ and are in Christ then God is pleased with them because they are united to Christ. But all those who don’t have Christ there is nothing they can do that will do anything but bring the wrath of God upon their heads.
How our hearts must be examined to see if we are indeed united to Christ or not. It is so vital to do this as if we are not united to Christ, then we are doing nothing but treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath on judgment day. The heart, being quite deceitful and proud, will rage at this and be angry, but that does not negate the truth of it. On that day only those who are truly married to Christ will enter into the presence of the living God. All others, regardless of their good works and regardless if they were preachers or very moral, will perish forever because of their sin and especially their religious sin. There is no eternal value in anything we do apart from Christ and instead it brings eternal wrath. But if we have Christ, even a cup of cold water in His name will not lose its reward.
God Loves... Himself 
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