8073	Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must	on: December 19, 2006, 01:13:42 PM
I would not say the Bible teaches that a non-Christian's desires are 100% evil 100% of the time. \"THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;  11.  THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;  12.  ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.\"  13.  \"THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,\" \"THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS\";  14.  \"WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS\";  15.  \"THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD,  16.  DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS,  17.  AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN.\"  18.  \"THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.\" Here is the state of men under sin.  Men are corrupted in every area of their being both spirit and body. All of their deeds are only evil continually. Because men do not posses the righteousness of Christ their deeds are evil. All men are not as evil as they could be because there are different levels of sin in a natural way. Men may do good things in the sense of philanthropy. But spiritually there is no goodness in mens actions because the philanthropist acts are from an evil heart. Men being alienated from God, do acts of goodness in a self righteous way in display of their independence from God. Their deeds are offensive to God because they are done in the spirit of alienation from God to self. Choices come from desires that are from the deepest recesses of the soul. An unbelievers soul is dead to spiritual things and there is no love to God in his heart not having  spiritual affections ,men are void of divine light and life in  soul and mind. An unbelievers freedom to choose is that he can choose what he desires most for himself. In that sense there is a goodness in choosing morally good. And there is a good consequence in choosing or making morally good choices. But every choice is done from an evil desire not being spiritually good. It seems that there is some freedom to choose but really unbelievers are in the state of bondage and from our view point as believers ,their choices are bondage choices. Even as believers we are still corrupted with sin because we still possess the remnants of sin in our whole being. We are corrupted entirely. The goodness that we have comes from a heart that has been regenerated. The desires that come from our souls are spiritually good desires. There is a spiritual goodness in our personal choices because the desires are our desires , our soul has been transformed, but because our goodness comes from a corrupted heart the desires are mixed with corruption so that they are unacceptable before the eye of God. We have been imputed with the righteousness of Christ and all our works compared to His accomplished work in His obedience, and death and resurrection are unacceptable we brought under the light of divine justice. Our goodness is only accepted because we are good because we have Christ goodness to our account. So the above passage even applies to us and we are brought to silence when we see ourselves before the law we see our potential as sinners and we turn to Christ being fully convinced by the law that we possess the above corruption. We are ungodly in ourselves as believers.