Galatians 3:3
After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?
There is nothing more clear than the intent of Paul's sentence above. Paul is suggesting it is missing the mark completely to attempt to attain things in the flesh, since our very new-life began not by anything that we did. Our efforts were of some minor value prior to the crucifiction: namely, they should us that we ourselves were helpless to actually do good.
The modern Christian church usually teaches that we are to combine the best of human effort with God's power. Paul teaches a complete elimination of the human effort component. So, to work on human effort so as to do God's work, in some way, is simply wrong. Christ is the only agent that is capable of any good, which can be worked through us. Our job isn't even to get out of the way so that God can work, since that would also be a job that we would have, and we don't have jobs, God does it all. He did all the saving when we came to Christ and the passage above reminds the Galatians and us today that Christ is still the agent in complete charge.
