Who is the Source of Your Activity?

The following is from W. Ian Thomas' excellent book The Saving Life of Christ:

 "This is the subtle temptation with which you too are confronted, for the Devil will come to you again and again and whisper in your ear that you are not as bad as the Bible makes you out to be, that there is always something good in what you are, apart from what Christ is--that there is always something salvageable in human nature, no matter how bad a man may seem to be.

"God, it seemed to them [King Saul and those with him], was taking things too far.  His judgment upon Amalek seemed to them to be unwarranted, a fanatical exaggeration of the issues; and so, in defiance of God's word, God's mind, God's will, and God's judgment, they tried to discern between good and bad in what God had wholly rejected.

"It is comparatively easy to be sorry for what you have done, and to recognize the sinfulness of sins committed, but we are by nature loathe to concede the natural depravity of what we are and the total spiritual bankruptcy of man without God.  We fall again and again into the error of estimating ourselves without due regard to the ultimate origin of righteousness and the ultimate origin of sinfulness.
 
"Let me remind you again that nothing is good or bad by virtue of what it is.  It is good or bad only by virtue of its origin, and that is why you can be so easily deceived and impressed by the pseudo-righteousness and apparent virtue that stem from the self-life, with its perceived bent for simulating what is good.

". . . In other words, the fact that you are a preacher, the fact that you are a missionary, the fact that you are a Christian worker, the fact that you are a witnessing Christian, does not make you spiritual, nor your activity righteous--no matter how deep your sense of dedication or the sacrifice involved.

"As far as God is concerned, Christ is the preacher, Christ is the missionary, Christ is the Christian worker, Christ is the witnessing Christian.  Only what He is and what He does is righteousness--and what He is and what He does is released through you only by your unrelenting attitude of dependence.  This is called faith--and 'whatsover is not of faith is sin' (Rom. 14:23c)."