“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?” (Luke 11:11)
Most who are born again have heard this verse and given thanks to the Almighty, but how many contemplate what the Lord said with it, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13)
How many in the crowd that day thought, “What does He mean I am evil?”
How many of you see yourself as evil today, are not we who have been crucified with Christ the righteousness of God in the Savior, are we not hid in Christ, does it mean that once we have been born again that we are no longer evil, has that part of us that lives in rebellion against the Most High been completely and totally removed, are we now continuously profitable servants with no thought whatsoever to self?
Have you taken a good look at yourself lately?
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1st John 1:8)
I am led to return to this subject often by the Holy Spirit in part because of the days of darkness that we find ourselves in, when blame is laid at the feet of others instead of personal accountability being employed by most. The enabled person sees no fault in themselves, but only in the failure of others to accept them and whatever truth they have envisioned to be truth. The ones who see no evil in themselves say, “Thank you Lord for not making me like others,” the one who has truly been born again says, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”
For those who have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ our history does not go back to Adam, but to the cross, where we repented and were washed clean, but there is a part of us that is still evil and does not need our adversary’s assistance to remain that way.
Are you aware that wicked sinful people can love, can experience positive emotions that lift them up and give them joy? Did you know that the fruits of the Spirit can be emulated by those who do not serve the Lord Jesus Christ for the glory of God, that some who will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire prophesized in the name of the Living God. Evil, wicked, vile, repulsive in the eyes of the Almighty does not just describe those who will be damned forever my friends, but a part of us who have been born again.
A hard point to contemplate for sure, but nonetheless true.
“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” (Romans 7:18)
“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Romans 7:25)
On that day there were some in the crowd that took great offense at the words of the Savior, and not all of them were Pharisees, some were what the world calls “good men,” but there were others who understood, there were others who recalled Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Who remembered Romans 3:10, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:”
There is evil in the flesh, and no one can remove it by any good deed, no words spoken can remove it, a life of good works will not take it away, only the Lord can, and He will, on the day that you are glorified.
Once you realize this truth and accept it as such, you will begin in all honesty to realize the incredible grace of the Almighty.
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
