We are Saved by Faith — not of Ourselves – Dwight Lyman Moody
For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
It is not what I do that I trust in, but what Christ has done for me. You’ve been down the shaft into the mine, sir. This will help me to tell you what I mean. For a long time I was trying to do what was right — to live as I ought to; and so was trusting to my own works for salvation. But all the while I felt as if I was still down at the bottom of the shaft. All I could do didn’t get me out of the pit. Then God showed me that all my righteousness was but filthy rags, as the Bible says. But how was I to get out of the shaft? Why, at last I found that the only way out of the deep mine into which sin had brought us was to do just as I do when I want to get out of the coal mine. To do this, I have only to get into the bucket when it comes down, and trust to the men at the windlass to draw me out. And so I find it is about my soul. I can’t draw myself out of the pit; but I trust in Jesus, and leave it all to Him.
(D. L. Moody.)