The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV)
Apart from Jesus indwelling a life, mankind is wholly polluted by his sinful nature within and his practice without. No matter how pious he may seem. His works will always be found wanting. There is nothing innately “good” in him. Jesus tells us in Mark 10:18B (NIV): “No one is good--except God alone.” Meaning, it is a faulty perception of “good” if we consider it something that is measured by mere human achievement – a human achievement apart from the inner working and power of the Holy Spirit will always be flawed. God considers the motivation of the heart as important as the work itself. Who is receiving the glory? The One Who gives the power, gets the glory.
Apart from Jesus, we remain blinded to the things of God – insensible with hearts of stone. God alone is the Glorious Standard and apart from Him indwelling us through the power of the Holy Spirit, we remain willing servants to our overruling masters of sin, self and Satan. When we judge ourselves against other people we can look pretty good, yet when we judge ourselves against God we will always be lacking (to say the least).
Mankind is oppressed in both body and soul by the deplorable effects and miseries sin has brought upon him. Sin never ends pretty – neither do selfish ambitions and vain conceits. It turned an angel into a devil and it can turn a man into a beast as we become like its father – the father of all lies, Satan. And Christ remains the only remedy to cure sins wounds yet we often refuse Him as if He were our enemy instead of our Savior Who alone can deliver us from us. Our actions can appear that we are in love with our own ruin when we refuse to turn and be cleansed and righteously empowered - all to our own harm. We often think so highly of self and so little of God. We are wise to consider our ways regarding this.
When God comes into our hearts, He takes possession. And this is expressed in Scripture as coming out of darkness into His marvelous light. He opens our blind eyes to the things of Him. We are called a new creations – overcome by God’s power and pleasure and peace that passes all understanding.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (NIV)