The Reason we can rely on God

I was knocking together some thoughts the other day for a friend who is having a hard time with the whole "who am i" and "what is the point of life" type questions. They have a belief in God but they don't really know how it should pan out.
Anyway, I stumbled across a few things that I thought were really significant so I thought I should record them.
I don't have the space here to go into massive depth but one of the things is that we need to understand our position in Christ. We were sinners, we come to Christ, we do not become 'good people' we merely become vessels for Jesus. This means that God has forgiven us because of Jesus and it also means the important point is to allow Jesus to use us rather than thinking we need to 'learn' how to be better people. This is human religion and does not work. It also means that you do not have to be 'good' to be a Christian. It also means that you do not cease to be a Christian because you struggle with things.
Another point was that we need to remind ourselves why Jesus died. If we can become good people (even with Jesus' 'help') His death was meaningless. He could have helped us without dying. His death is actually for our death to sin. Only by this can we be free to allow Jesus to take control.
A major thing that I guess I hadn't thought of before was about how God has based our new life on the death of Christ and on our baptism as the mechanism to move into it. Why is that important? Because it is historical fact and not based on the current state of our life. (Well at least if you are baptised). This should give us hope because our relationship with God and our Christian new life does not come and go with the seasons or our mood or situation or our trials and temptations. None of those things change anything between us and God. It means we always have a foundation, a baseline, something to rely on in all situations and it means that we can forget that damaging thought process which says that because I am feeling distant or under pressure that my relationship with God has been damaged.
It is not damaged. It might be a bit quiet but it is based on only God's plans and not on us so it cannot be damamged by circumstances. This means that we are always a few seconds away from closeness with God again. It means we don't have to reject ourselves because of our situation since God hasn't!! Sweet.