God takes a certain pleasure in purging man of his self-reliance. Someone will object to this by tauting the virture of self-reliance and mistaking it for self-control. Self-control is not a fruit of the self but of the Spirit. And that fruit comes to those who rely not on themselves but the Spirit of Christ. The good news is, where you find a man trusting his own mind and muscles, there you have a man who is soon not going to be trusting his own mind and muscles. God likes to steal that faith from man.

He steals that faith from you at this table. For here He calls you to die in Christ. If you join Christ in His death you certainly won’t be able to help yourself. You will be dead, after all. But if you die in Christ, you will die in the power of the resurrection because you die planted in Him. Since you partake of His body and blood here, then you will rise by His power. For “if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8:11). So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.