I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.”

Psalm 16:2 NAS

When we try to please the Lord from ourselves, all we have is filthy rags, according to Paul.  Jesus said that unless our righteousness surpasses that of the leaders of the Jews, we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  In their pride, in their self effort, though they knew they did not fulfill all of the righteousness of the law perfectly, they held themselves as leaders of the people, hiding their own sin, and not crying out for the brokenness that was in them for the depravity of their hearts.  Though their lives seemed to demonstrate a holiness that surpassed everything else, they were corrupt, filthy, and unclean in the eyes of God.

Yet, David, years before the New Covenant, already perceived the secret of the Kingdom through the Spirit of prophecy that was on him.  He wrote, saying, there was no good in himself except for the Holy Spirit within Him.

So too, Jesus explained this better.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

John 6:63

If we rely on anything of the flesh, anything of the Earth, anything of even our own earthly understanding, rather than the Spirit, we do nothing for the Kingdom.  While God is in us, and He often speaks through our desires and our own thoughts, unless we grow and learn to discern the precious from the mundane, the Spirit from the soul, we will always be subject to failure.

David wrote that his only good was the Holy Spirit.  Jesus modeled this, only doing what He saw the Father doing, only saying the Words those words that were the Father’s.  He lived, and the Father in Him did the works, and He Himself was a servant, not promoting Himself, not helping Himself, but denying, laying it down, and continually being a sacrifice that others might live.

He is our model; He is our life.

He came that we might have life, His life.  His life is now our only life.  And, it is His words that are our path, that if we live by them, we will abide in His love continually.

One man can stand before an entire army and win.  One believing person, separated from the world, is sufficient to withstand every onslaught from the enemy, because he is already defeated.  If we stand in nothing but the Spirit, living by no other light, no other wisdom, no other word other than those that are life, we will never be overcome.  And, though they may take our bodies, our physical lives, it is the Spirit life within us that is our being.  Though we perish, we will never taste death, and though they kill our bodies, they have no power to throw body and soul forever into hell.

What David foreran and prophesied in the Psalm, Jesus lived and demonstrated its fullness.  What was David’s delight has become our place to live, to exist, and to have our being.

All else is corrupt.  How else would Jesus say that to break the least command and to break it is to be the least in the Kingdom?  For God’s law is perfect, and holy.  When we live entirely by the Holy Spirit, not looking at all to the Law for our justification or for our guide, we will be living then by the Author of that Law, and in that, fulfill it perfectly, which is love.

And, love speaks to its neighbor.  Love exhorts and rebukes.  Love judges and makes war.

The Spiritual man is judged by no one.  When we live by the Spirit, we are not subject to another’s judgement.  We are not subject to our own judgement.  But, as we hear, we judge, and our judgement is just because we do not seek our own (John 5:30).

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

John 3:19