Who is in control here, anyway?

The two-nature belief results in misery. It puts us right back in Romans 7: “The good I want to do, I don't do, and the evil I don't want to do, I do. Oh, miserable person that I am, who shall deliver me?” That's where most of us have found ourselves, trying to beat down one of these masters and help the other one to ascend. Who was in control of that? We were. We were trying to do that. As I said before, this leads to nothing but endless self-effort and failure. And then the answer finally comes: Christ is my life!— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 96

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As always, the fruit of self-effort is failure—or self-righteousness. The latter, if we manage to delude ourselves that we have managed to attain the standard; the former if we are honest with ourselves.
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