The Human Condition - Our Deep Need
It's our third week of Lent, and this week we will be looking at themes of sin and salvation - strong themes in the Wesleyan tradition, and certainly important themes in every Christian tradition that I know of.
Understanding Our Fallen Nature
Let's begin with a Wesley quote, this one from John Wesley's famous sermon "Original Sin". He writes: "By one man's disobedience all men were constituted sinners. By Adam's fall, we totally fell - fell in body and soul. Since then, we are all dead in sin, and dead to God. For in Adam all died - spiritually died, lost the life and the image of God."
Wesley is speaking about the deep need for salvation that each and every human being has. When Adam sinned, the whole human race became sinners by nature - so that, though we are created in the image of God, we end up marring the image of God when our sinful natures kick in and we rebel. And then on we go living sinful and selfish lives, and that image of God within us becomes less distinct. As Wesley said, we all fall in body and soul, and are dead in sin and dead to God.
The Healing Power of Christ
This is what Jesus came to heal. He came to heal the image of God within us, by breaking sin's power in our lives, and setting us free to walk in godly ways. And we can't do this ourselves, we can't fix the broken image of God in our lives by ourselves. In fact Wesley also says in his sermon that people often think that human beings are inherently virtuous, and forget that humankind is helpless - helpless to save themselves from the effect of sin.
Romans 3:23 says it this way: "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
So the question today is this: do you recognize your deep need for Jesus? Many people don't feel that they need any assistance from Jesus. They don't feel that they have any need for salvation, or for healing. And so they end up rejecting the one who can help them most.
It reminds me of a story I read about an old slave ship back in the bad days of that kind of thing. An English warship was pursuing a slave ship to free the slaves. But when they got up close to the slave ship, the slave-owner gave the slaves guns and told them that the English had come to kill them. So the slaves began fighting and firing at the very ones who had come to save them. They didn't know that their saviours had come! And perhaps they didn't even know that they needed saving.
Are you fighting and firing at the one who has come to save you? Unaware that you need what the Saviour alone offers?
We're helpless to save ourselves from the sinful ways that mar God's image within us. We need a Saviour. Thank God today, that He provided a Saviour for each and every one of us, in His Son Jesus Christ.
