Now Playing: Invisible God by Andrew Peterson
I taught last Sunday on Sin and Depravity. Depravity is a good word for describing my (and your) natural tendency toward sin. Not that we choose the worst possible sin we can commit, but rather that when our options are obeying God and doing what we want, we will pick what we want every time, and what we want is, naturally, sin.
If that’s true (and I think it is), how do you ever figure out which of your desires are good and which are bad? I mean, for a believer in Christ, we’re new creations, no longer bound to sin, but then Paul describes in Romans 7 the struggle between sin and the new creation in him.
I guess that’s where being in Scripture, praying, and the work of the Holy Spirit have to come into play. And that’s often the part that western Christians aren’t great at. We tend toward self-sufficiency and self-reliance. But that’s not biblical Christianity. It’s a western/enlightenment/what-have-you notion forced into a Christian mold.
God help the man who helps himself, he needs no other devil. – Andrew Osenga, Firstborn Son.