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Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

I often think about Christ having all power, but He abdicated the power to live a sacrificial life for His children. In His own words he told his disciples that His meat was to do the will of the Father.

The Father willed that his blessed and glorious Son, whom he gave to us and who was born for us, should through his own blood offer himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins.

Jesus was a human being who, while on Earth, completely self-actualized and fulfilled in all ways the potential glory that lies within us all.

This means that to man God gave a degree of free will.

God himself took this human flesh upon him.

God revealed himself through the Law, which pointed to Christ as its end and goal, commanded the obedience that comes from faith, increased transgressions, and shut the mouths of all humans because no one has performed the righteousness of the Law so as not to need a substitute.

The perfection of Christian character depends wholly upon the grace and strength found alone in God.

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It's when you go backwards through the 'begats' and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, 'Hang on, that's a big punishment for eating one lousy apple... There's a human-rights issue.'

The self is just not a worthy enough vehicle to worship.