christian living on Sin Nature

Merciful God, loving Father, you govern all things in heaven and on earth and make all things new through your almighty word. Transform our sinful nature and all that we do by the power of your Holy S...

Almighty God, you created us good, but by our sin, we have corrupted that goodness. Through our sinful nature, our default way of life is rejection of you, living for self, and doing what’s easiest. W...

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

Nearly everybody knows of at least one sin habit in their life that they wish to leave behind them. Yet, no matter what they do, it seems impossible for them to be free of this habit, character flaw, ...

You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good term...

Pastor: Oh God, in my foolishness, I have denied that you are my God, my Lord, and my Father. Because of my abominable deeds and corrupt nature, I can do no good without you. All: You dwell in Heave...

Pastor: O Lord, we are in over our heads. So many are the sins that we’ve committed this past week, and they condemn us in your presence. Only because you love us with a never-ending, unbreaking, alwa...

How great and glorious You are, O God. There is no one like You. You transform our weakness into strength. You forgive our stubbornness and arrogance, and fill us with Your generous wisdom. You turn o...

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What . Miller took this point to an even further extreme. In his book, he tells a story about one occasion when he was speaking to a class at...

Men have never been good, they are not good and they never will be good.

In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...

Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul.

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

We are too anxious to be able to wait for fruit and time to ripen, so we take the shortcuts of robbery and violence, even the torture of little children; sin leads to crimes against both nature and ou...

God is more willing to pardon than to punish. Mercy does more multiply in Him than sin in us. Mercy is His nature.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us ...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Historical Clue The superscript of Psalm 51 gives us a historical clue about the composition of this Psalm, “A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophe...

Dwight Lyman, better known as D.L. Moody was a renowned evangelist, publisher, and preacher during the late 19th century. On one occasion, he was invited to guest preach at a local church. Soon after ...

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

It could not have been done unless man paid what was owing to God for sin. But the debt was so great that, while man alone owed it, only God could pay it, so that the same person must be both man and ...

In The Seven Storey Mountain , Thomas Merton describes his life of sin and his eventual turning to God in his early years. He despised and ridiculed the word virtue, which had come to mean “prudery p...

Union with Christ fundamentally and irrevocably changes our relationship to sin. Our old self has been crucified (Rom. 6:6), and sin has no dominion over us (v. 14). This doesn’t mean a part of us cal...

Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to...

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insi...

When he was a young boy, twelfth-century church leader Bernard of Clairvaux fell asleep outside a church while waiting to go in for a Christmas Eve service. In his sleep he had a dream, a kind of visi...

With all the best intentions, we tend to flatten the biblical view on holiness until we squeeze out the dynamic nature of life with God. In an effort to own up to our own abiding sinfulness and highli...

I infer that God's decrees, and the necessity of event flowing thence, neither destroy the true free-agency of men, nor render the commission of sin a jot less heinous. They neither force the huma...

The natural environment is our home, but it is first God’s creation. The cosmic scope of God’s new creation embraces the whole of nature. According to the biblical notion of shekinah, God intends to d...

A few years ago, HBO released a gritty (surprise!) crime drama called True Detective . The show starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as the two detectives responsible for catching a serial...