The Depth of Our Depravity and The Power of His Grace

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. Hebrews 5:13

One of the great things about doing prison ministry is that your audience knows they are sinners. The state has formally proclaimed it. It makes presenting the real gospel so much easier. That’s one of the great problems of witnessing to free people. They don’t think they are sinners. Most people think they are basically “good.” It’s easy to look around and find someone “badder” than ourselves. They don’t see any real need for Jesus.

Because of this challenge, sometimes we short circuit the true salvation message problem by presenting Jesus, not as an answer to the problem of our sin, but as a kind of self-improvement guru. By doing this we eliminate the “problem” of talking about “sin” and repentance. We tell folks Jesus can make our lives better and we can be happier. That’s very true, but it tries to present the solution without addressing the problem. It also leaves the “believer” confused about the process of sanctification.

The truth is we are sinners. In fact, we are much worse than we are willing to admit. It’s kind of like an onion. We can’t handle the depth of our depravity all at once. When we come to Christ, He shows us our sinfulness by layers. As each layer is revealed and dealt with through his grace, another layer is revealed. 

Because we don’t confront the issues of sinfulness with the new believer, he becomes confused about the Christian Walk, the difference between milk and meat. If we view Christianity as a self-improvement program, we begin to think that the meat consists of more sophisticated methods, more complicated teachings, more biblical detail. In fact, the meat is confronting the deeper issues of righteousness. The Christian Walk is a process of becoming more like Christ, more righteous. That process consists of recognizing sin, confessing it, and turning from it – that’s our part. Cleansing us and strengthening us – that’s what He does.

To the new Christian, not stealing is pretty good. To the more mature, giving away what we have becomes the standard. To the new guy, not committing adultery is the standard, to the mature, not looking upon a woman with adulterous thoughts becomes the standard. To the new guy, going to services once a week is plenty, as we mature we can’t get enough of being with our Lord and His people.  To the new guy, the Christian life is giving up something, to the mature, it’s gaining the whole world.