Pastor Chuck Swindoll draws from Scripture to examine the Spirit’s subtle but powerful ministry of inner promptings—those hunches, convictions, and flashes of clarity that guide believers toward God’s purposes when they are paying attention.
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For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)
Webster says depraved means, “marked by corruption or evil, perverted, crooked.” It’s important that you understand this is an internal disease; you can’t detect it from the outside. Most folks don’t “look” depraved. Most of us do a masterful job of covering up. But never doubt that underneath, deep down inside, there is this disease that eats away at us and pollutes our thoughts and our words (intellect), our relationships (emotions), and our actions (will).
Someone said it best when he suggested “If depravity were blue, we’d be blue all over.” Cut us anywhere and we’ll bleed blue. Cut into our minds and you’ll find blue thoughts. Cut into our vision and there are blue images full of greed and lust. Cut into our hearts and there are blue emotions of hatred, revenge, and blame. Cut into our wills and you’ll find deep blue decisions and responses.
The tragedy is we don’t look blue! We look good. We look clean. I think we look physically better than our world has ever looked. But there’s something deep within that is depraved. It’s called our nature. That’s why we can’t clean up our act. That’s why we can’t handle our own lust. That’s why we can’t say no to certain temptations. That’s why we fight with each other and fight with God—realizing that we shouldn’t. And yet we can’t seem to stop. We can’t seem to keep our promises. If we are going to have control over all this it must come from outside ourselves!
This book called the Bible may be old, but it isn’t out of date. It may tell us our story in ancient terms, but its message is still true, still relevant. We’ve got the disease, the same problem—depravity.
And that root problem yields fruit—sinfulness—sinful thoughts, sinful words, sinful actions. There is nobody on earth who can help us! We need Jesus.
Taken from Growing Deep in the Christian Life by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 1986, 1995 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
Ministry Offer
Resisting Temptation
Resisting temptation is not natural but a learned discipline, and those who fail to prepare will eventually give in. In this study of Joseph from Genesis 39, Chuck Swindoll highlights how Joseph’s ability to say “no” came from a prior, deliberate resolve that equipped him to stand firm when temptation arose.
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