BETHANY BAPTIST CHURCH

Evil things come from within, and they defile a person (Mark 7:23)

The heart of our problem is our heart itself. We try hard to change what we do and keep doing the good we want to do, but we don’t realize that the fundamental problem is in our being, not in what we do. Until we admit that problem, the sin problem, there is no hope. Total depravity is the most experientially tested and proved doctrine yet the most emphatically despised and denied. When total depravity is watered down, the gospel becomes a therapeutic tool, not a transformative means. The uniqueness of Jesus is that He unapologetically exposed that our primary problem is within ourselves and not outside of us. He then called His audience to repent of sins rather than reciting religious slogans. Jesus did not say that we only have behavioral disorders. He looked right through us and said the problem is the heart and needs to be transformed. Gospel is not teaching us specific exercises as a physiotherapist does but calls for heart transformation, which our creator does. Freedom is not the right to do what we want to but receiving the power to do what we ought to. That’s what Christ gives. There is a story of a man who prayed to clean all the cobwebs out of his life. The guy seated next to him was tired of hearing this but saw no change in this man's worldliness. So the following Sunday, as soon as he prayed the same thing, this man said loudly, “Lord, kill the spider.” We feed the spider but want the cobwebs to be cleaned, and to make things worse, we are experts in seeing and blaming the cobwebs in others' lives for the mess in our own lives. What is that spider you are feeding but so worried about the cobwebs it is spinning into your life? Are you smartly indulging in blaming the cobwebs in others' lives to let yourself feed the spider of your life? Don’t let sin reign in your mortal flesh. Present your bodies as instruments of righteousness, not as instruments of unrighteousness. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

-Pastor