Grace #2

I noticed something similar with my last post and the one I'm
about to post - my two thoughts during vacation both have to do
with total depravity.

What is total depravity, you (may) ask? Total Depravity is
basically the belief that we are not spiritually "sick", as many
Christians believe, but that we are spiritually "dead". The
analogy that is often given that we are drowning, and when God
extends his hand, we have only to grab it in order to be saved.
I'm not entirely sure this is true. I believe the better analogy -
and the one I believe Scripture lays down for me - is that we are
dead in the water. We are lifeless. There is not even enough
"umph" in us to reach up and grab God's hand. That is what
Scripture talks about when it says we are "dead" in sins
(Ephesians 2) - it's not that we were surrounded and longing to
get out... No more than a dead man hates the fact that he's
surrounded by dirt. The dead man goes along with it, just as we
go along with sin. From the womb, we are depraved creatures
who, while we still bear a semblance of God's image, hate going
along with what that implies - that we should be loving God with
all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Now, total depravity does not mean we are all as evil as we
could be - even with someone spiritually dead, there's loads of
potential to be even more evil than they are. Hitler, for example,
probably loved his mother to a certain extent.

As far as the second thought goes, then, I can only say that the
fact that we are spiritually dead does mean that straight from
birth, we are on our way to hell, and nothing but divine
intervention can change that. We have a heart that is anti-God,
and we are powerless (remember, we're dead spiritually - not
just sick) to change that. The reason that God speaks of a new
birth, a new mind, a new spirit, etc... is because we need to be
new in order to truly love God.

This grace of this new birth is called "regeneration", and I'll look into that more in another post:-)