“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
– Ephesians 2:1-3

Here we see a picture of human nature as God sees it. Let us allow the Bible to reveal to us who we really are, no matter how dark it may seem at first.

– We are not only sick, weak, and/or helpless. Rather, we are dead. The proper analogy of salvation is not that we are drowning in the water and Jesus comes by and throws a lifesaver at you and you have to reach out and grab it to be saved. Rather, it is the analogy that we are already dead at the bottom of the pool and Jesus must pick us up, breathe life into us and open our eyes before we could ever choose him. We are dead in our sins.
– “we all once lived.” I believe “all” here means “all.” ALL people begin their life with the default mode of their heart and nature being deserving of wrath, following the prince of sin.

– notice here that the sin that is the primary expression of our sinful nature is not our actions. It is the “passions of our flesh” and the “desires of the body and mind.” The condemning expression of our sin is our desires, not our actions. Christianity is not a behavior improvement program. We have such modest expectations for “religion” as we want it just to make our actions “better.” What God wants to do, rather, is change our very desires and our very nature, so they are in line with His. God wants to change the heart, man seeks to change the actions.

Let’s seek to change what God wants to change, not man. Typically, what man wants to change, if it is a good and holy thing to change, will indeed truly change if we first allow the changes God wants to change, and this is no different.

By the way, the answer to the question at the end of yesterday’s post? Sorry. It will be tomorrow. I didn’t want to make this too long.