Man has NO power in himself to leave his fallen condition. BUT, man has total freedom to join his heart and his will (in love and submission) to the power that comes from God, or to the power that comes from Satan. Again I say, man is NOT the source of this power, life, or righteousness. He can no more produce it than he can create the moon. But when the power of God appears, stirs, and reveals a measure of truth in him, then man is entirely free to “love His appearing,” (2 Tim 4:8) love the light, agree with what is made manifest, and so RECEIVE power to be made a new creation.

Man has a conscience, an inward faculty of feeling or finding good and evil, and this can be influenced either by God’s Spirit, or by a number of other things—like how we are raised, what we see and experience when we are young, what our society thinks is appropriate or taboo, etc. But the light of Christ (the living Truth or Perspective of God) that shines IN the conscience, gives us a sense or sight of TRUE righteousness and wickedness. It breaks through our opinions and cultural norms, and often gives us to feel things that are directly against what we have been taught or have wanted to believe.

Your relationship with God is the reality of God living in you. It is the very life of God—a seed of His nature, light, power—planted in the soul of fallen man, given in order to grow, and fill, and reign in your fallen soul, transforming it into a clean temple for His presence and glory.

It's one thing to know that Christ is the Word of God, it's another thing to experience the implanted Word of God (that is to say, the living communication and manifestation of God) actually putting off from us everything in our heart, mind, and thoughts that is contrary to Him, and clothing us with an entirely new nature. Christians often fall very short here, satisfying themselves by confessing and professing what they do not really possess.

Christ comes to transform you, not to inform you. Many people adore His words, but hate His nature when it appears (little by little) as a judge and teacher in their hearts. They love what He said, but they crucify who He IS when His light demands a conformity to His image. And when we won't love, follow and submit to His light, then it moves on without us, always heading to the Promised Land, and we are left behind, doing circles in the wilderness, arguing about His words.

Here is your condition. This is what you currently feel, and what everyone can feel if they are willing to turn to the Voice that reproves them. You feel something stirring and moving in you that is good, and pure, and living, and is excited to know and really find and follow Christ. And yet you feel something else in you that is very different, very contrary, big, and well-fed. What are these two things? And why are they wrestling within you?

There is a great difference between a diligence or striving to carefully submit to and cooperate with the work of God, and a striving to produce a work of our own. The effort involved on our part is never to produce life, light, righteousness, or spiritual growth, but rather to diligently submit to that which comes from God and works by His power, and to carefully live in such a way that our lives in the body, and our time in this world, do not wage war against His purpose for our souls.