have apparent power, none of us could fight against the flesh and its crav-
ings, although we have all been ordered to do so. In fact, we could not
even think about battling them. We would let our mind go into evils of
every kind. We would be held back from actually doing evils only by the
laws of justice that have been passed in the world and the penalties they
prescribe. Inside we would be like tigers, leopards, or snakes that utterly
fail to reflect on the cruelty that their hearts enjoy.
Clearly then, because we are rational in a way that animals are not,
we have to resist evils using the powers and abilities the Lord gives us,
although as far as we can tell, those powers and abilities appear to be our
own. The Lord gives us all this illusion in order to regenerate us, attribute
goodness to us, forge a partnership with us, and save us.
As Long as We Believe That Everything Good
Comes from the Lord, We Do Not Take Credit
for the Things We Do As We Practice GoodwillIt is damaging for us to take credit for things we do for the sake of our 439
salvation. Hidden within our credit-taking there are evil attitudes of
which we are unaware at the time: denial that God flows in and works in
us; confidence in our own power in regard to salvation; faith in ourselves
and not in God; [the delusion that] we justify and save ourselves by our
own strength; contempt for divine grace and mercy; rejection of reforma-
tion and regeneration by divine means; and especially disregard for the
merit and justice of the Lord God our Savior, which we then claim as our
own. In our taking credit there is also a continual focus on our own
reward and perception of it as our first and last goal, a stifling and an
extinction of love for the Lord and love for our neighbor, and total igno-
rance and unawareness of the pleasure involved in heavenly love (which
takes no credit), while all we feel is our love for ourselves.
People who put their own reward as the first priority and salvation as
the second, and therefore seek salvation as a reward, turn the proper
arrangement upside down. They drown their inner desires in self-
absorption and physically pollute them with evils belonging to their
flesh. For this reason, goodness that we do to earn merit looks to the
angels like a rust-colored plant disease, while goodness that we do not do
to earn merit looks a rich purplish-red.
§439 goodwill & good actions 525