What people fail to realize is that the bible is filled with things that we should do in order to achieve JOY. JOY is not necessarily happiness, it is more eternal. It is the result of being obedient to God’s laws.
Forgiveness,repentence, faith, prayer are action words. They require us to act in order to gain or regain our relationsship with our heavenly father.
Anytime we have something in our lives that comes between us and our relationship with our Heavenly Father it requires us to act and keep acting until we are successful.
Many people feel they must do it on their own and fail to ask Heavenly Father to help them and therefore are unsuccessful. They fail to ask for help because of pride and guilt and not really wanting to change.
The most vulnerable time for satan to get ahold of a person is when they have opened their minds and hearts to accept change but haven’t asked Heavenly Father for help.
I think you're on target there, we have to realize it's just impossible to grow in the moral life i.e., practicing virtue without the help of God:
Jn:15:5: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.