How well do you think you understand the nature of sin? Well, if you understand it well enough to know that we’re born selfish, you’re beginning to come to grips with your human nature. The truth is it’s easier for us to want to be pleased than it is for us to want to please someone else. Revealing examples arise at such times as when someone wants to speak with us and all we want is the conversation to come to a conclusion so we can be off on our way. It should be noted though that this is far less common when we love someone and receive love from them.
Obviously, relationship is everything in effectively overcoming our natural self-centered tendencies. Even with your mail, you’ll toss junk mail on the counter or even into the trash before you bother to see what it says. But you won’t miss a word of a jury duty notice, loan foreclosures or anything written in a letter from a family member writing home from a military post. You might read a book recommended by your spouse, but you will definitely read a book written by your spouse. Urgency, love, and personal interest are the things that get our time and complete attention.
The Bible, God’s written word to us, is filled with messages of just these things: urgency, love and personal interest. But we’ll never know it if we just toss it on the counter instead of opening it up. In studying the Bible, the very first thing we find is God’s love for those of us He created in His own image and likeness. Soon after that, the problem of sin arises followed immediately by the problem of death. And, as they say in court notices, being ignorant is no excuse. We definitely need to know about God’s love or we’ll never be motivated to know what else He’s written. And following this lack of motivation to the next logical conclusion, we’ll never know what His likes and dislikes are, and how we’re invited to share a life of mutual love and respect.
Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7 NIV
