Our only help, our only access to spiritual power comes through Christ. There is no power in self-sufficiency. Reference: E.G. White, "The Upward Look," p. 238.

Full text of the devotional: “Christ Has Power for Us,” August 12

And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. Colossians 2:10.

We are to live in the warm, genial rays of the Sun of Righteousness. Nothing but His loving compassion, His divine grace, His almighty power, can enable us to baffle the relentless foe and subdue the opposition of the human heart. What is our strength? The joy of the Lord. Let the melting love of Christ fill the heart, and we are softened and subdued, prepared to receive the power that He has for us.

Let us thank God every day for the blessings that are ours. If the human agent will humble himself before God, realizing how inappropriate it is for him to cherish a feeling of self-sufficiency; realizing his utter inability to do the work that needs to be done in order for his soul to be purified, casting away, making of no account, his own righteousness, Christ will engrave His own image upon his soul...

Christ will never neglect the work that has been placed in His hands. He will inspire the resolute disciple with a sense of the perversity, the sin-stained condition, the depravity, of the heart upon which He is working. The true penitent has learned the uselessness of self-importance. Looking to Jesus, comparing his own defective character with the Saviour’s perfect character, he can say,

In my hand no price I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling.

With Isaiah he declares, “Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name” (Isaiah 26:12, 13).

Beholding Christ for the purpose of becoming like Him, the seeker after truth sees the perfection of the principles of God’s law, and he becomes dissatisfied with everything but perfection. Hiding his life in the life of Christ, he sees that the holiness of the divine law is revealed in the character of Christ, and more and more earnestly he strives to be like Him. A warfare may be expected at any time, for the tempter sees that he is losing one of his subjects. A battle must be fought with the attributes which Satan has been strengthening for his own use.

The human agent sees what he has to contend with—a strange power opposed to the idea of attaining the perfection that Christ holds out. But with Christ there is saving power that will gain for him victory in the conflict. The Saviour will strengthen and help him as he comes pleading for grace and efficiency.—Manuscript 89, August 12, 1903, “First Be Reconciled to Thy Brother.”