Jesus was crystal clear in John 15:5 when He said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus knew that no matter how hard we tried and how many good things we did, we wouldn’t measure up to God’s standard of perfect righteousness.
Additionally, Jesus understood that becoming more like Him is a lifelong process that’s only perfected on the other side of death. However, while we are alive, it’s God doing the work, not us alone. The moment we try to go it alone and fix things in our lives apart from Jesus, is the moment we discover we can’t do it without Him and trust me, I know this from personal experience.
Self-help tactics can be useful and not all of these concepts are totally bad, but none of them are 100% effective! I totally get the process of accountability and I firmly believe that faith without works is dead, however faith without Jesus is equally terminal!
SIMPLY PUT: WE NEED TO PUT THE DUCK TAPE DOWN! JESUS DONT BELIVE IN WORK AROUNDS OR TEMPORARY FIXES!
At the setting of the day and dawn of the morning, our life is a journey we must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get us out of that dead-end, empty-headed life we grew up in. He ungrudgingly paid our debt with Christ’s sacred blood! He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God knew exactly what He was going to do for us! It was because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that we trust God, that we know we have a future in God because ‘He that has begun the good work in us will bring it to perfect completion’ (Phil 1:6) in Christ and Christ alone.
Jesus is the only One that could ever measure up to God’s standard of perfect righteous and without the Vine (Jesus) we (the branches) would be forever flawed and imperfect.
4GIVEN 