I attempted to save myself!

Do you think yourself better than most? I did. Only I think I really was. I didn't curse, or drink, or smoke. I didn't get high, sleep around, or steal. I wasn't a fighter, a molester, or a queer.
I was good. I went to church every Sunday, I read the Bible everyday. I was kind to my friends and family. I loved my wife, worked hard, and gave money to the church. I prayed, and told others to respect God. I was an all around pretty good guy.
Were you that good? Most aren't. I told you I was better than most.
But, there was another thing that I was....I was deceived! God says in his Word that the most important command in all of the Bible is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength,and mind. I didn't do that.
I was guilty of not always putting God first and foremost in my life. It is easy to know if you love God with all of your heart, just ask yourself this question. What is it that takes up the majority of my time, energy, resources, talents, and thoughts? Is your answer that you have always spent all of these things on God? He is the one that has given you all of life after all! Clearly I was guilty of not loving God all of my heart! I lived with guilt for much of my life because I knew that I was not being as good as I should be. Do you ever feel this way? Do you live with regret over the things that you have done? Do you know that you should have done differently than you did?
If you have not loved God, how can you continue to live with yourself?! How can you go on with life, thinking that maybe everything is going to be o.k?! You have slighted God! You've robbed the God of heaven of the glory, attention, and affection that only he deserves! How, oh how can you go on with life normally!? Things are not o.k! You would think it was a bad thing if a man did not love his friends, and a very bad thing if he did not love his parents, but how much worse if he does not love the very God that gives him life and breath and all good things? We ought to be extremely ashamed of ourselves! How dare we enjoy life and God's goodness and not love him with all that we are? Shame on you!
This is the state that I found myself in a few years ago. I was ashamed, guilty, blameworthy, and according to God, hell deserving!
Many people have realized that this is their condition before a holy and righteous God, but have taken a man made religious approach at seeking to reconcile themselves back to God.
I found myself seeking to pray more fervently, crying more desperately, and striving to live righteously more earnestly. I continued to live in guilt. My God given conscience persisted in telling me that I was to blame! I sought peace with God through whatever means I knew. I confessed my sins, still the guilt returned, I prayed anxiously, consistently, but it would not be long after that I would sense God's displeasure with my life. I asked God to forgive my sins and Jesus to help me to live better, but the battle remained. It seemed as though God was very far away indeed. I had no confidence in a positive after life, I only hoped that God would see my feeble attempts at pleasing him and have mercy and pity on me. That was my attempt at saving myself. That is all of humanities approach at pleasing a perfect God.
According to the testimony of God himself, all of this so called 'righteousness' is like filthy menstrual rags! Isaiah 64:6. You say, that is disgusting language! I know, I was shocked to find out what God thought about all of my righteousness as well. God is not religious, he is holy.
The answer to this problem is not in man. Don't believe all of the garbage you here from the psycologists, or the modern 'christian' preacher (they are basically synonymous). You are not a good person living with a bad self esteem! You are a bad person living under the righteous condemnation of God. You are not alone! We all have this dilemna, the Bible says that all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.
In all false religion, hope for the sinner lies in the character, life, or religious duties of the sinner himself. This is entirely hopeless!
There is a division between God and man, there is enmity. Humanity is fighting against their creator and you are a part of it. The gap will not be bridged by efforts to reach God, this gap can only be crossed by God himself!
God comes to you, you don't go to him! God saves his enemies while they are still battling against him. Romans 5:1-11. No conscience will ever be cleared without full reconciliation being made, not without full penalty being made! This is exactly what God did for us.
We don't have a God that can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He became a man and walked among us. The Word (the second member of the Godhead) became flesh. He was tempted in every way that you and I are, yet he always loved God with all of his heart, he never sinned or offended God in any way. He was the perfect man!
He did this so that he could suffer and die to take away your and my sin. Jesus died on a cross, a long and extremely painful death. He took the mocking, the spitting, the torturing, and the pain of death willingly. He submitted himself to the cruelty of man's wickedness so that he could satisfy God's anger toward you!! He took upon himself the sins of the whole world and as 2 Cor.5 says, became sin for us, endured the wrath of almighty God for us, so that God could be just in accepting us! All of his blood was shed, so that yours need not be! He took your rightful place! And mine as well. We victimized God! We caused God to suffer on a cross! We killed the very God that we ought to have loved! The Bible says in Isaiah 53 that when God saw the travail of Jesus upon the cross that he was satisfied, it says that it actually pleased God to crush Jesus! Why? Because that is exactly what you and I deserve! Jesus did all of this in order to give room for God to put away your sin!
I attempted, in ignorance mind you, to save myself through offering to God my filthy rags, and I failed miserably. And I was better than most (tongue in cheek). Do you think you have what it takes to reach up to God and to save yourself? Please listen to me and stop trying. Obey the gospel. Accept the good news of God. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto HIMSELF! God did not make an attempt to save us, he made FULL provision for ALL! Behold, now is the day of salvation, today if your hear his voice, don't harden your heart! Turn to him in faith and believe on Jesus with all your heart and your sins will be blotted out and your conscience cleared of your guilt! Jesus said, 'IT IS FINISHED!', and so it is. Turn to Jesus for pardon and cleansing.