Romans 3:10-18
"As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes."
The word of God is very clear - "There is no one righteous!" Can't we use our good deeds to save ourselves? Totally impossible, because in the eyes of God there is no one righteous in the world. It's not a matter of whether we are righteous or not, but only a matter of how unrighteous we are. Before the completely holy God, we are simply all sinners. Paul sited many Old Testament scripture passages to illustrate the rottenness of people. First of all, the words in our mouth often bring on destruction and damage, as it says here: "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips." Aren't most conflicts in our relationships caused by our mouths and lips? On the one hand we are hurt by words from others, but on the other hand we hurt others with our words as well. We you are angry and upset, or you feel jealous of others, perhaps you don't even remember what you said, but your words might have hurt others tremendously. Our mouths and lips are very important, as it says James 3:5 that "...Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark." May God help us not to speak words that exaggerate or gossip about others, and often speak words of thanksgiving and edification.
Also, our sinful action will bring forth consequence that we deserve. Not only is our unrighteousness revealed through what we say, it will also manifest in our actions in daily life. We often do unjust things to others because we lack the merciful heart of God, or we simply keep our merciful heart silent while we do evil to others. Many Christians behave righteously at church but are utterly unrighteous outside of church. They claim to fear God but their hearts are distant from God, thus the actions in their life stumble many people.
Brothers and sisters, you need to ask God for a fearful heart in order to defeat the authority of this type of sin. The evildoers do not fear God, thus we need to learn to fear God in our daily life in order to overcome such authority of darkness. Starting today, let's love God wherever we are!
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