“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” (Romans 8:5)

Look closely at the first part of that verse – Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires. Could there be a more fitting statement to describe what America has become? The King James Version of the Bible reads – For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, you see, they are wanting to follow the desires of the flesh. This “One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” was once filled with a robust people who cherished freedom and who loved to offer opportunity to others.

But America has now become an arrogant, self-centered people enslaved by their own greed, sexual immorality, and corruption. Oh, and take a look at the people outside the Church community, they’re not so good either. And this is more true than we’d like to admit. What you think about, and what you desire, in your heart, will tell you a lot about yourself. Our pagan culture still uses the word “heart” in the same context as the Bible does, in that when we say: “I believe this with all my heart,” we mean: I believe way down deep inside myself.

Sadly, today people are looking at themselves and trying to see into, and to understand their own nature apart from the Bible. However the deeper you go into your own human nature the more you find out that God’s Word is true that the heart [of man] deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9). And the fact is, you can sit cross-legged on the floor and have all the late night pseudo-intellectual conversations that you want to. You can study all the philosophy you want, and contemplate pools of water or spiders spinning webs.

Hey, you can contemplate an old sack of potatoes if you want to, whatever it is you want to concentrate on. But the truth is you are never really going to understand what’s wrong with you, and why you keep doing things that hurt others, and that hurt yourself, until you recognize that man fell from his state of fellowship with God in the garden of Eden. And that this fall is not remedied by looking inside yourself, that fall is remedied by looking outside yourself to a merciful God, Who in Jesus Christ on the Cross reconciled people back to Himself. I encourage you today to turn away from all these seeker sensitive trappings and to sincerely ask God if what I have just told you is true.