Our Spiritual
Condition: Totally Depraved?
The first truth is rather personal. One look in the mirror of
Scripture, and our human condition becomes painfully clear:
As it is written, " There is none
righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There
is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together
they have become useless; There is none who does good, There
is not
even one." Romans 3:10-12
We are sinners through and through---totally
depraved. Now that doesn't mean we've committed every atrocity
known to humankind.
We're not as bad as we can be, just as bad off as we can
be. Sin colors all our thoughts, motives, words, and actions.
Don't believe it? Look around. Everything around us bears the
smudge marks of our sinful nature. Despite our best efforts to
create a perfect world, crime statistics continue to soar, divorce
rates keep climbing, and families keep crumbling.
Something has gone terribly wrong
in our society and in ourselves, something deadly. For, contrary
to how the world would repackage
it, "me first" living does not equal rugged individuality
and freedom; it equals death. As Paul says in his letter to the
Romans, "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23)---our
emotional and physical death through sin's destructiveness, and
our spiritual death from God's righteous judgment of our sin.
This brings us to the second marker: God's character.
