So we must guard against real sins. But it's also to real sinners that the gospel reaches out.

This is exactly how those who rely on their own efforts to be justified still act today. They concentrate on the good that they do, which they hope will please God. They don't trust in God's mercy and his grace. They aren't hoping that God will forgive their sins through Christ. This

And this is the pure and unalloyed meaning of the First Commandment: We should deem ourselves to be nothing as regards our merit, but to have, receive, and find power to do everything only by His mercy and love, to His glory — mercy which He first promises by His Word and then also confirms afterward by a work which He does through us, as by a sign, just as here He cites the Exodus from Egypt and the destruction of the Canaanites.

Trying to merit grace by preceding works, therefore, is trying to placate God with sins, which is nothing but heaping sins upon sins, making fun of God, and provoking His wrath.

For more than twenty years I was a pious monk, read Mass daily, and so weakened myself with fasting and praying that I would not have been long for this life had I continued. Yet all this taken together cannot help me in even one little crisis to be able to say before God: 'All this I have done, now please consider it, and be gracious to me.' What else did I achieve with this than to plague myself uselessly, impair my health, and waste my time?

Those who are already righteous and heirs of eternal life through Christ, whose merit they accept by faith — they do good, not with the purpose of attaining eternal life, to which they are already entitled by an alien merit, namely, Christ's, but with the purpose of being pleasing and obedient to the divine voice, so that the glory of God as well as holy teaching and life are promoted.

Therefore the first care of every Christian ought to be to lay aside all reliance on works, and strengthen his faith alone more and more, and by it grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus

Therefore neither discipline nor other virtues which can be invented by the will, nor works taken upon oneself, no matter how difficult, merit forgiveness of sins or reconcile us with God, but only faith in the Son of God.

Not only are all men without exception declared to be guilty in God's sight, they are slaves to the sin that makes them guilty.

The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man was the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with and all-holy God.

O God, our merciful Father, by Your Holy Law do You work in us the true knowledge of our sin, that our heart may be penitent, and our soul humble before You. Blot out our iniquities with the blood of Your Son, cleanse our souls from the dark spots with which we have soiled them, and comfort us with the assurance of Your grace. Build Your Church with us and our children, that Your name may be glorified by many generations. Amen.

He has come that they might reject their works; but this is a thing they cannot suffer, and they reject Him.