Nothing!--You can't save yourself! Yet the central belief of almost all of Man's religions is that Man is basically good and righteous, and he can save himself. In fact, after careful analysis we can safely conclude that there are really only two schools of religious thought and belief in the World: The "Do-It-Yourself" religions and the "God-Alone-Can-Save-You" kind!

Most of the World's religions teach their followers that they can save themselves by their own piety and good works, by their own holiness, by their own sufferings, their own self-denial, or by their own obedience to the laws and traditions of that particular religion!--But no man yet has ever been good enough to earn or merit his own salvation!--"For there is not a righteous man upon the Earth who always does good and never sins."--Ecclesiastes 7:20.

In the very beginning, God originally intended for each of us to have a close personal relationship and communication with Him. He wanted to be our closest Friend, Someone Whose Love, faithfulness, concern and care we could always count on.

But God did not want to make us be friends with Him. He could have easily created us all to automatically obey and worship Him, like some kind of robots, but He didn't want to force us to love or obey Him. This is why He allowed both good and evil to be revealed, so that we could each make a personal choice, so we could voluntarily choose to love and obey Him, or rebel and go our own way.

Sad to say, each of us has made the wrong choices at some time or another. We have acted selfishly, unkindly and unlovingly, not only hurting others, but even hurting God Himself, Who as our loving Heavenly Father, is saddened when He sees we are going the wrong way.

But despite all of our troubles, problems and imperfection, God still loves us and wants to be close to us, to be our nearest and dearest Helper and Friend. Yet no matter how earnestly and sincerely we try by our own piety, good works, suffering etc. to become close to Him, to become one with Him, to become "enlightened" by Him, to attain salvation from Him, we will always fall short of reaching this goal.--"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God!"--Romans 3:23. No matter how good or righteous we try to be, no matter how severely we discipline ourselves or strive to attain godliness or salvation, it is simply not within Man to save himself!