Week 19 of 52 Prayers of Faith - Faith is realizing there is nothing good in us apart from Christ

Faith is realizing there is nothing good in us apart from Christ - Lord increase our faith.

This can be hard for us to accept, because many of us think we are pretty good people. We think that we are kind and loving and have forgotten what we are/were really like apart from Christ. One look at children and you can see the worst of us. Our childhood memories are both wonderful and terrible all at the same time. In children we say there is innocence, but if we look a bit closer we can see the dark side of human nature. Children are natural liars, tattletales, they are selfish and greedy. Unless constrained by strong parental control, they can become tyrants who try to dictate to their parents how things are going to be.

There is a quote once attributed to Socrates concerning children of his age - "The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise."

I am not full convinced that all children are bad, but in our children we can see some of the worst of our society at times.

We have all worked for or with people who are "the worst" who cheat and lie and steal in the work place. We have all met bullies in school and in the work place who have made our lives miserable. These people I believe exemplify the Biblical text, in Romans 5:10 where Paul tells us that we were once enemies of God. In 1 Cor 6:9-11 he gives us a big long list of those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God and he goes on to say that many of his readers were these detestable people. But now in Christ they were washed and sanctified and justified in Christ Jesus. It is only through Him and by Him that we have any hope of pleasing God.

Faith demands that we accept and believe that we cannot please God in and of ourselves, because apart from the redeeming work of Christ on the Cross and entering into his baptism, we have no hope of doing anything good or right. If we believe that we are good enough we will never be able to accept Christ's saving grace and we will never be more than Pharisees convince of our own righteousness and therefore forever lost in our sin.

Lord, we know that apart from you we can do no good - Lord increase our faith