The Nature of Our Desires

This is the focal point of our fallenness. Gen.6:5-the heart of fallen man continually harbors desires that are only wicked.
The heart is the core of the soul, the deepest seat of human affections. Jesus saw a close connection between the location of man's treasures and the desires of his heart. Before a person can make a choice which is pleasing to God, he must first have a desire to please God. Before we can find God, we must first desire to seek Him. Before we can choose Christ, we must first have a desire for Christ.
Does fallen man, in and of himself, have a natural desire for Christ?
In the Fall, man lost his original desire for God. When he lost that desire, something happened to his freedom. He lost the moral ability to choose Christ.
**In order to choose Christ, the sinner must first have a desire to choose Christ. Either he has that desire within him or he must receive that desire from God.
**If God does not plant that desire in the human heart, nobody left to themselves
will ever freely choose Christ. If man lacks the moral ability to choose Christ, how can God ever hold him responsible to choose Christ?
What is the distinction between man's natural ability and moral ability? Fallen man has a free will but lacks liberty. How could anyone have a free will and still not have liberty? Fallen man is in a serious state of moral bondage. That state of bondage is called original sin. Without acknowledging that we are fallen, we cannot acknowledge that we are sinners.
It is possible to admit that we are fallen without embracing some doctrine of original sin, but only with severe difficulties in the process. It is no accident that almost every Christian body (church) has formulated some doctrine of original sin.
At this point multitudes of Christians disagree. We argue that we must have a doctrine of original sin, but there remains great disagreement as to the concept of original sin. Reformed and non-Reformed people heartily agree that all who believe will be saved. They heartily disagree about who has the ability to believe.
Jesus explicitly and unambiguously taught that no man has the ability to come to Him without God doing something to give him that ability, namely drawing him.
Rom. 8:7,8-**What distinguishes those who are in the flesh from those who are not is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. **Man's fall is so great that only the effectual
grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith.
If each of us is born without a sinful nature, how do we account for the universality of sin? If death is repeatedly said to have come into the world as a result of sin, how do we account for the death of infants? We must desire to have an eternal perspective where uncertainty has been widely accepted. God is the author
of the Bible, notwithstanding the men that He inspired to write it. No other book carries power in its words-Rom.1:16-"The gospel is God's power to salvation."
I Thess. 1:5; 2:13. Jesus used the water from the well as an analogy of how the things of this world can never satisfy the longing of our souls. John 4:13,14-
"Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never thirst again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life." Has that thirst inside you been filled yet?
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." John 14:6 Say, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and You." Now is the acceptable time of salvation. Matthew 11:28 says, "Jesus said, "Come to me, all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." In other words, God wants you to come to Him regardless of your present condition. Then He can give you a new beginning. Jesus promised that if you seek Him, you will find Him. What is missing in our lives? Purpose, meaning, a reason for living-these are all things we desire and search for in life. There is only one way to fill that void. The problem: sin. Sin is not just an act but the actual nature of our being. Psalm 51:5-"For I was born a sinner-yes, from the moment my mother conceived me." Jeremiah 17:9-"The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" We are not basically good-we are basically sinful." Rom.5:12,18-"When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned...Adam's one sin brought condemnation for everyone." Our righteousness is as filthy rags in God's sight." Matt.7:13,14-"You can enter God's kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road difficult,
and only a few ever find it" By ourselves, we don't have a leg to stand on in the sight of God. "The wages of sin is death." God doesn't grade on a curve. Romans 3:23 says we have all sinned. Rom.3:10-"No one is righteous-no, not one." What exactly is God's glorious standard? Romans 6:23-"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." The solution: Jesus Christ. God understood our problem and knew that we could do nothing about it. **Because God loves us, He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to bridge the chasm of sin that separates us from Him.
Why Jesus can bridge the gap:
Jesus was not conceived in the womb of His mother through natural means. Jesus was supernaturally conceived in the womb of a young virgin named Mary. "When He appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death
on a cross"-Phil.2:7,8