Some people imagine spirituality as a climb upward, an “ascent of the soul” that aims to reach God through the performance of good deeds or religious rituals. But God does not say “at the end of the way you will find me,” but rather, “I AM the way, the very road under your feet, the Place (הַמָּקוֹם) where you are, the Bridge to the Father (John 14:6). “For all things come from You (כִּי־מִמְּךָ הַכּל), and from your hand we give to you” (1 Chron. 29:14). The LORD is Present in every “here” and every “now,” the Source of all we are. And no matter what our circumstances, we will find God if we search “bekhol levavkha” – with all our being, as it is written: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
The principle of the self-life, the ego, religious observance, “doing the law,” etc., is a spiritual dead-end because we are without life, without power. The word is this: God gives strength to the weary, to the faint, to those who are without potency or power. But this means that we first must be emptied, broken, and stripped of our self-sufficiency before the strength of God is manifest in us: “My power is made perfect (τελειοῦται) in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). None of this flatters the ego. God’s way is first to break us, to make us weaker and weaker, so that he can then fill us with the miraculous divine nature. Like all sacrifices that were brought to the altar, we must pass through death to life by means of our union with the Messiah at the cross… It is only after the cross that it may be said, “It is no longer ‘I’ who lives; now it is Messiah who lives His life in me” (Gal. 2:20). There is indeed strength, power, and victory – but such comes after the cross, after we reckon carnal energy as useless. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says Adonai Tzeva’ot” (Zech. 4:6).
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