I recently came to the end of my faith. After 31 years of working at being the best Christian I could be, I finally gave up. I finally came to a place in my life where I realized that all of my efforts to overcome my flaws and failures were fruitless. I left my religion behind, and surrendered to the fact that I could never be good enough, and the best thing I could do was allow my faith to die.

It was a slow death. It started with my filth, and moved through my flesh, until it finally took hold of my faith.

For many years I acknowledged my filth (Psalm 51:3). I knew my sins very well, confessed frequently that they were such, and begged God for deliverance. Yet, they continued. They devoured me, and I couldn’t figure out after three decades why I had not yet received victory over the things I was in bondage to. “Like a city that is broken down, and without walls,” I had no rule over my own spirit (Proverbs 25:28). Fear turned to anxiety, which turned to frustration, and finally to anger, which led to bitterness and regret. It was overwhelming. Depression and despair set in as I looked behind me at a life that left destruction and pain in its wake.

The problem was my flesh. I was “after the flesh,” and therefore my mind was all about the things of the flesh, no matter how hard I tried to be otherwise (Romans 8:5). I was stuck in a world where I was the center. I would deny it, and even pretend that it wasn’t so, but what mattered to me was my comfort, my pleasure and my position as the key player in the story of my life. I could fight it, and play the good guy, but only for so long. Eventually, my rights would be violated and I would feel compelled to defend them. I had a carnal mind that was at “enmity against God”. It was “not subject to the law of God,” as it was incapable of being so. You see, “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8).

But one day, it all became clear. For 31 years God had been real to me, and Jesus was the way, but both had been created in MY image. I had a “form of godliness,” but was “denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). I realized that I had been living by MY faith, instead of HIS (Galatians 2:20 – KJV). My FILTH had been my own to clean, and my FLESH my own battle to fight. My FAITH had BEGUN with the truth that I could not be saved by my works (Titus 3:5-7), but then fell upon the lie that I had to “work” the Christian life, and perform for the approval of God and His people (Galatians 3:3-5).

The day I realized these things was the day I finally yielded my whole self to Christ alone. Everyone is yielded to someone or something. Where I had been yielded to myself, a servant of uncleanness and iniquity, on that day I finally yielded to righteousness and holiness (Romans 6:16-23). Not mine, but HIS. That was the day I betrayed my SELF! I let go of it all, and turned against my filth and my flesh. But even more difficult; I turned against MY faith. I truly repented of my efforts to be faithful, and left it up to Him. I came to the end of my faith and found the salvation of my soul (1 Peter 1:9).

Now I am perfect. Not in your eyes, but His. While I still live in this flesh I will continue to battle with it. The difference is that I see it, and I let Him fight the battle, and I let Him correct me. I am clothed in His righteousness, because my righteousness is filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Now, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).