Apart from HIM I am NOTHING

"Humility is such an elusive virtue.  Once you think you have it, you don't, or you wouldn't think you did." - Max Lucado

Ouch.

I read that this week and my heart hurt..... 
Just when I think I've got my flesh under control, I've repented and withheld NOTHING from Him.....in my repentance my PRIDE takes a beating, stripped and left bare---feeling as though I have accomplished some great thing.  As if it's a BADGE of HONOR.  
Dying to self IS a great matter.
Dying to self HURTS.  
Thinking I've been HUMBLED I suddenly realize I'm not very much unlike the Pharisees and I might as well put on the sack cloth, my filthy rags, cover myself in ashes and consider myself RIGHTEOUS.
I'm just needing my certificate of APPROVAL from my Heavenly Father and I can put it on my fridge.

Just when I think I've done all that is required to be RIGHT with God, my heart is ripped out with the gut-wrenching realization that I will never ARRIVE at a state of perfect righteousness.  
I will always somehow come up short......  

Then I remember the words in 2 Corinthians 4:7
We have this INCREDIBLE TREASURE in CRACKED and BROKEN vessels----so that the world would know that ANY GOOD, any EXTRAORDINARY thing that comes from us is from GOD---because it couldn't POSSIBLY be from myself....  

I am ONLY righteous because of all that Christ did for me that day when HIS flesh was put to death on that cross.
There is NOTHING I can do to be right with God.
There is nothing I can accomplish here on earth OUTSIDE of His GRACE.
I can take NO credit for any of it. 
Apart from HIM---I am NOTHING.
That is TRUE humility.