Oswald Chambers: Beware of Human "Holiness"

Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest:

"I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it. If I construct my fatih on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life--an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation. It is useless to God and a nuisance to man."

"We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ."

"Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life--it is a fraud."