Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
Most people would agree that the modern western Christian Church is extremely carnal. So books are written, blogs are updated (there's a little bit of irony here I guess) and twitter accounts buzz with enthusiasm about each day's new self-help guide to holiness. The only problem is that just like almost everything else that is done in the United States, the very foundation of these things is Humanism.
We qualify Jesus with man-made using justifications like "some people just don't work that way," or "all those things are true, but you have to be practical." The practical and simple truth is that the moment you try to make people holy through any means separate from the Bible, it's Humanism. According to statistics, the world and the Church have the same exact morals. The reason for this is that the world and the Church are using the same tactics. We use small-groups, self-help books, and the 'power of positive thinking' in order to keep people from sin.
What we no longer stress however is that in becoming a Christian, every person has the power through Jesus Christ to not sin, and more importantly, that is the expectation. Every Christian will inevitably sin, that is shown in Scripture, but that is meant to be the exception, not the norm. A Christian is different from a person in the world. They have the power of God inside of them. This is what saved a believer from sin, and it is the only thing which has power to keep a person from sinning again.
So a believer must every morning crucify themselves to the world and choose to follow Christ. They must 'look full in His wonderful face.' Nothing has the power to save besides Jesus Christ alone.
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