William Wilberforce Quotes

You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.

If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.

We are too young to realize that certain things are impossible... So we will do them anyway.

true Christians consider themselves not as satisfying some rigorous creditor, but as discharging a debt of gratitude

Accustom yourself to look first to the dreadful consequences of failure; then fix your eye on the glorious prize which is before you; and when your strength begins to fail, and your spirits are well nigh exhausted, let the animating view rekindle your resolution, and call forth in renewed vigour the fainting energies of your soul.

This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours!

When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.

Selfishness is one of the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature; and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate our defects.

We have different forms assigned to us in the school of life, different gifts imparted. All is not attractive that is good. Iron is useful, though it does not sparkle like the diamond. Gold has not the fragrance of a flower. So different persons have various modes of excellence, and we must have an eye to all.

He well knew his mind's natural tendency to be endlessly on a thousand subjects at once, to flit from this to that and to the next thing to no particular purpose--indeed, he called it his "butterfly mind.

Is it not the great end of religion, and, in particular, the glory of Christianity, to extinguish the malignant passions; to curb the violence, to control the appetites, and to smooth the asperities of man; to make us compassionate and kind, and forgiving one to another; to make us good husbands, good fathers, good friends; and to render us active and useful in the discharge of the relative social and civil duties?

God Almighty has set before me two Great Objects: the supression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners.

Taken all together, it’s difficult to escape the verdict that William Wilberforce was simply the greatest social reformer in the history of the world.

The distemper of which, as a community, we are sick, should be considered rather as a moral than a political malady.

Christianity has been successfully attacked and marginalized… because those who professed belief were unable to defend the faith from attack, even though its attackers’ arguments were deeply flawed.

It makes no sense to take the name of Christian and not cling to Christ. Jesus is not some magic charm to wear like a piece of jewelry we think will give us good luck. He is the Lord. His name is to be written on our hearts in such a powerful way that it creates within us a profound experience of His peace and a heart that is filled with His praise.

It must be conceded by those who admit the authority of Scripture (such only he is addressing) that from the decision of the word of God there can be no appeal.

What a difference it would be if our system of morality were based on the Bible instead of the standards devised by cultural Christians.

Servile, and base, and mercenary, is the notion of Christian practice among the bulk of nominal Christians. They give no more than they dare not with-hold; they abstain from nothing but what they must not practise.

How can we judge fairly of the characters and merits of men, of the wisdom or folly of actions, unless we have . . . an accurate knowledge of all particulars, so that we may live as it were in the times, and among the persons, of whom we read, see with their eyes, and reason and decide on their premises?

We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires. Love, Zeal, Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Trust, are each of them specified; and are not allowed to us as weaknesses, but enjoined on us as our bounden duty, and commended to us as our acceptable worship.

In the calmness of the morning before the mind is heated and weary by the turmoil of the day, you have a season of unusual importance for communing with God and with yourself.

I would suggest that faith is everyone’s business. The advance or decline of faith is so intimately connected to the welfare of a society that it should be of particular interest to a politician.

You can choose to look the other way but never again can you say that you never knew.

Let him then, who would be indeed a Christian, watch over his ways and over his heart with unceasing circumspection. Let him endeavour to learn, both from men and books, particularly from the lives of eminent Christians, what methods have been actually found most effectual for the conquest of every particular vice, and for improvement in every branch of holiness. Thus studying his own character, and observing the most secret workings of his own mind, and of our common nature; the knowledge which he will acquire of the human heart in general, and especially of his own, will be of the highest utility, in enabling him to avoid or to guard against the occasions of evil: and it will also tend, above all things, to the growth of humility, and to the maintenance of that sobriety of spirit and tenderness of conscience, which are eminently characteristic of the true Christian.

Blessed be to God for the day of rest and religious occupation wherein earthly things assume their true size.

Some might say that one’s faith is a private matter and should not be spoken of so publicly. They might assert this in public, but what do they really think in their hearts? The fact is, those who say such things usually don’t even have a concern for faith in the privacy of their interior lives.

Let true Christians then, with becoming earnestness, strive in all things to recommend their profession, and to put to silence the vain scoffs of ignorant objectors. Let them boldly assert the cause of Christ in an age when so many, who bear the name of Christians, are ashamed of Him: and let them consider as devolved on Them the important duty of suspending for a while the fall of their country, and, perhaps, of performing a still more extensive service to society at large; not by busy interference in politics, in which it cannot but be confessed there is much uncertainty; but rather by that sure and radical benefit of restoring the influence of Religion, and of raising the standard of morality.

No man, ever indulged more freely or happily in that playful facetiousness which gratifies all without wounding any.

because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, he gave them over to a reprobate mind

Having seen all this you can choose to look the other way, but you can never say again, 'I did not know.

We are all guilty... [But the opportunity to make money] can draw a film across the eyes, so thick, that total blindness could do no more... A trade founded in iniquity must be abolished... let the consequences be what they will.

Both man and woman have their own parts to play in bringing faith to the next generation, and the woman's role is particularly important. How can we ever think that the female sex is inferior when we see the essential responsibility God has given women in this world? Their sensitivity to spiritual concerns seems to be farm more innate and natural than a man's. Mothers and wives often are the medium for our intercourse with the heavenly world, the faithful repositories of spiritual knowledge and wisdom. We should all be careful to avail ourselves of the benefits they have to offer both the present generation and the one that will follow us.

..how interest can draw a film across the eyes, so think, that total blindness could do no more; and how it is our duty therefore to trust not to the reasonings of interested men, or to their way of colouring a transaction. William Wilberforce, 12th May 1789, Against the slave trade

Why is it so hard to get people to study the Scriptures? Common sense tells us what revelation commands: 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God'--'Search the Scriptures'--'Be ready to give to every one a reason of the hope that is in you.' These are the words of the inspired writers, and these injunctions are confirmed by praising those who obey the admonition. And yet, for all that we have the Bible in our houses, we are ignorant of its contents. No wonder that so many Christians know so little about what Christ actually taught; no wonder that they are so mistaken about the faith that they profess.

The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy.

If there is no passionate love for Christ at the center of everything, we will only jingle and jangle our way across the world, merely making a noise as we go

How can you measure the value of the good news of Christ? It is spoken of in the Bible as light in the darkness, freedom from slavery and life from death. Look at how much the Early Church valued the message. They received it with great joy and overflowing gratitude.

Glory, glory, said the Bee, Hallelujah, said the Flea. Praise the Lord, remarked the Wren. At springtime all is born-again.

herding cats and shoveling smoke.

What we believe determines how we live. Men who sincerely believed that what they were doing was right have perpetrated many of the most hideous crimes against humanity.

Influenced by Wesley and the revival movement, Englishman William Wilberforce led the successful movement to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire.

You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you didn’t know —William Wilberforce

The Scriptures were plain and could not be gainsaid on this most basic point: all that was his—his wealth, his talents, his time—was not really his. It all belonged to God and had been given to him to use for God’s purposes and according to God’s will. God had blessed him so that he, in turn, might bless others, especially those less fortunate than himself.

No man,” Wilberforce wrote, “has a right to be idle.” “Where is it,” he asked, “that in such a world as this, health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?

With the best of intentions, the generation before mine worked diligently to prepare their children to make an intelligent case for Christianity. We were constantly reminded of the superiority of our own worldview and the shortcomings of all others. We learned that as Christians, we alone had access to absolute truth and could win any argument. The appropriate Bible verses were picked out for us, the opposing positions summarized for us, and the best responses articulated for us, so that we wouldn’t have to struggle through two thousand years of theological deliberations and debates but could get right to the bottom line on the important stuff: the deity of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, the role and interpretation of Scripture, and the fundamentals of Christianity. As a result, many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong. In short, we never learned to doubt. Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue. Where would we be if the apostle Peter had not doubted the necessity of food laws, or if Martin Luther had not doubted the notion that salvation can be purchased? What if Galileo had simply accepted church-instituted cosmology paradigms, or William Wilberforce the condition of slavery? We do an injustice to the intricacies and shadings of Christian history when we gloss over the struggles, when we read Paul’s epistles or Saint Augustine’s Confessions without acknowledging the difficult questions that these believers asked and the agony with which they often asked them. If I’ve learned anything over the past five years, it’s that doubt is the mechanism by which faith evolves. It helps us cast off false fundamentals so that we can recover what has been lost or embrace what is new. It is a refining fire, a hot flame that keeps our faith alive and moving and bubbling about, where certainty would only freeze it on the spot. I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one’s beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged. When we recognize that our theology is not the moon but rather a finger pointing at the moon, we enjoy the freedom of questioning it from time to time. We can say, as Tennyson said, Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.15 I sometimes wonder if I might have spent fewer nights in angry, resentful prayer if only I’d known that my little systems — my theology, my presuppositions, my beliefs, even my fundamentals — were but broken lights of a holy, transcendent God. I wish I had known to question them, not him. What my generation is learning the hard way is that faith is not about defending conquered ground but about discovering new territory. Faith isn’t about being right, or settling down, or refusing to change. Faith is a journey, and every generation contributes its own sketches to the map. I’ve got miles and miles to go on this journey, but I think I can see Jesus up ahead.

A good orator can whip a crowd, even a Christian crowd, into a frenzy. This is not the kind of emotion that God desires. When emotion is a response to truth or to a clear comprehension of the nature of God and His goodness to us, then emotion is valuable and appropriate.

A soft luxurious course of habitual indulgence, is the practice of the bulk of modern Christians: and that constant moderation, that wholesome discipline of restraint and self-denial, which are requisite to prevent the unperceived encroachments of the inferior appetites, seem altogether disused, as the exploded austerities of monkish superstition... But the persons of whom we are now speaking, forgetting alike the duties they owe to themselves and to their fellow-creatures, often act as though their condition were meant to be a state of uniform indulgence, and vacant, unprofitable sloth... To multiply the comforts of affluence, to provide for the gratification of appetite, to be luxurious without diseases, and indolent without lassitude, seems the chief study of their lives. Others again seem more to attach themselves to what have been well termed the ‘pomps and vanities of this world.’ Magnificent houses, grand equipages, numerous retinues, splendid entertainments, high and fashionable connections, appear to constitute, in their estimation, the supreme happiness of life.

Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple and lead not to meditation only, but to action.

The line between courageous faith and foolish idealism is, almost by definition, one angstrom wide.

so true is it that a gracious hand leads us in ways that we know not, and blesses us not only without, but even against, our plans and inclinations.

accomplishments should be on the lips of all

The problem with this way of thinking is that authentic faith cannot be inherited.

The acutely Christian character of the British abolitionist movement is undeniable, for its leaders were all consciously acting out of the principles of their deeply held faith.

There were effectively only two responses to the condition of the poor in Wilberforce’s day. One was to look down on them scornfully, moralistically judging them as inferior and unworthy of help. The other was to ignore them entirely, to see their plight as inevitable, part of the unavoidable price of “modern civilization.” But Wilberforce would introduce a third way of responding to the situation. This response would neither judge the poor and suffering nor ignore them, but rather would reach out to them and help them up, so to speak.

Carefully studying the Bible will reveal to us our own ignorance of these things. It will challenge us to reject a superficial understanding of Christianity and impress on us that it is imperative not to simply be religious or moral, but also to master the Bible intellectually, integrate its principles into our lives morally, and put into action what we have learned practically.

If we seek and keep on seeking, we will find; if we ask and keep on asking, we will receive; if we knock and keep on knocking, the door to truth will be opened. How can we refuse an offer like this?

We are all accountable: Our fallen nature is no excuse. We are responsible: God is not to blame. We stand guilty and deserving judgment. Any other teaching dilutes and refutes the true significance of the cross of Christ.

The instructive admonitions, “give an account of thy stewardship,“—“occupy till I come;” are forgotten. Thus the generous and wakeful spirit of Christian Benevolence, seeking and finding every where occasions for its exercise, is exploded, and a system of decent selfishness is avowedly established in its stead; a system scarcely more to be abjured for its impiety, than to be abhorred for its cold insensibility to the opportunities of diffusing happiness.

[ The ‘wretch’ who has been saved by grace] believes and feels his own weakness and unworthiness, and lives upon the grace and pardoning love of his Lord. This gives him an habitual tenderness and gentleness of spirit. Humble under a sense of much forgiveness to himself, he finds it easy to forgive others.” 76

God tells us our first duty is to love Him with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. This one emotion acts like a master spring that sets all the other components of the human heart into action. When it is present, many of the questions asked about what is appropriate and not appropriate for a Christian would not even need to be asked. Rather than trying to figure out what they can get away with and how close to the line they can get, men and women would be attempting to discern what they could do to express their love for God. The motivation would be totally different and we can only assume that the product would be also .

Holy anger has its roots in genuine love. Both are part of the nature of God. Jesus' love for the man with the withered hand aroused His anger against those who would deny him healing. Jesus' love for God's house made Him angry at the sellers and buyers who had turned the temple into a "den of robbers" (Matthew 21:13). Yet in both these cases and others, it was ultimately Jesus' love for those doing wrong that caused Him to be angry with them. His anger got their attention! Great leaders -- people who turn the tide and change the direction of events -- have been angry at injustice and abuse that dishonors God and enslaves the weak. William Wilberforce moved heaven and earth to emancipate slaves in England and eliminate the slave trade -- and he was angry!

If the Weather is sultry, and there appears the least Perspiration upon their Skins, when they come upon Deck, there are Two men attending with Cloths to rub them perfectly dry, and another to give them a little Cordial…. They are then supplied with Pipes and Tobacco…they are amused with Instruments of Music peculiar to their own country…and when tired of music and Dancing, they then go to Games of Chance.

For Anne Hutchinson, who knew it was illegal for women to teach from the Bible in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but did it anyway, we give thanks. For William Wilberforce, who channeled his evangelical fervor into abolishing slavery in the British Empire, vowing “never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name,”29 we give thanks. For Sojourner Truth, who proclaimed her own humanity in a culture that did not recognize it, we give thanks. For Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in the place of a Jewish stranger at Auschwitz, we give thanks. For the pastors, black and white, who linked arms with Martin Luther King Jr. and marched on Washington, we give thanks. For Rosa Parks, who kept her seat, we give thanks. For all who did the right thing even when it was hard, we give thanks.

Today, Wilberforce University welcomes many of America’s poorest and most underserved populations and transforms their educational dreams into realities.

No man has a right to be idle. . . . [W]here is it that in such a world as this, health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate? — William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity

What he had to say was really rather elementary: basic Christianity such as was professed in the Bible and in the doctrines of the Church of England, and to which almost everyone claimed to subscribe, was practically nonexistent in British society.

No true Christian can endure in battling unrighteousness unless his heart is aflame with new spiritual affections, or passions.

The focus on social and racial justice that strongly marked John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Charles G. Finney, Jonathan Blanchard, Charles Spurgeon, and other evangelical leaders in the 18th and 19th centuries was absent from the millions of words and scores of books John R. Rice penned during his lifetime.

No true Christian can endure in battling unrighteousness unless his heart is aflame with new spiritual affections, or passions. “Mere knowledge is confessedly too weak. The affections alone remain to supply the deficiency.”1

This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an hour and a half daily. I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had but a hurried half hour in a morning to myself. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may be done through prayer—almighty prayer, I am ready to say—and why not? For that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!—William Wilberforce

I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises as private devotion, religious meditation, Scripture reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. God would perhaps prosper me more in spiritual things if I were to be more diligent in using the means of grace. I had better allot more time, say two hours or an hour and a half, to religious exercises daily, and try whether by so doing I cannot preserve a frame of spirit more habitually devotional, a more lively sense of unseen things, a warmer love to God, and a greater degree of hunger and thirst after righteousness, a heart less prone to be soiled with worldly cares, designs, passions, and apprehension and a real undissembled longing for heaven, its pleasures and its purity.—William Wilberforce

It is true that the great religions of the world have produced some bad outcomes, particularly when married to politics: war, terrorism, conflict and corruption. We cannot hide from that. It is equally true, however, that when such religious expression is faithful to the founders’ principles, it produces spiritually attuned carers for humanity. such as William Wilberforce (abolition of slavery), William and Catherine Booth (founders of the Salvation Army), Mahatma Gandhi and the present-day Dalai Lama. These are but a few among the many self-transcendent champions of mercy, human dignity and human rights whose wellsprings of compassion are religious in origin.

No man has a right to be idle. . . . [W]here is it in such a world as this that health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate? — William Wilberforce

[The Christian] knows therefore that this holiness is not to precede his reconciliation to God, and be its cause; but to follow it, and be its effect. — William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity

On August 26 the Assembly responded by conferring French citizenship upon Joseph Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, William Wilberforce, Anacharsis Cloots, Johann Pestalozzi, Thaddeus Kosciusko, Friedrich Schiller, George Washington, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.

God would perhaps prosper me more in spiritual things if I were to be more diligent in using the means of grace. I had better allot more time, say two hours or an hour and a half, to religious exercises daily, and try whether by so doing I cannot preserve a frame of spirit more habitually devotional, a more lively sense of unseen things, a warmer love to God, and a greater degree of hunger and thirst after righteousness, a heart less prone to be soiled with worldly cares, designs, passions, and apprehension and a real undissembled longing for heaven, its pleasures and its purity.—William Wilberforce

He and his allies declared that every human being was equal in God’s sight and made in the image of God, and must therefore be treated with equal dignity.

Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue. Where would we be if the apostle Peter had not doubted the necessity of food laws, or if Martin Luther had not doubted the notion that salvation can be purchased? What if Galileo had simply accepted church-instituted cosmology paradigms, or William Wilberforce the condition of slavery? We do an injustice to the intricacies and shadings of Christian history when we gloss over the struggles, when we read Paul’s epistles or Saint Augustine’s Confessions without acknowledging the difficult questions that these believers asked and the agony with which they often asked them. If I’ve learned anything over the past five years, it’s that doubt is the mechanism by which faith evolves. It helps us cast off false fundamentals so that we can recover what has been lost or embrace what is new. It is a refining fire, a hot flame that keeps our faith alive and moving and bubbling about, where certainty would only freeze it on the spot. I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one’s beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged. When we recognize that our theology is not the moon but rather a finger pointing at the moon, we enjoy the freedom of questioning it from time to time.

The rough edges of one person rub against the same in another and create a friction that is bound to disturb the waters of interpersonal harmony and peace. When Christ is at work in our lives, He files down those rough edges. Instead of rubbing against each other, we work together like a well-oiled machine.

We are too young to realise that certain things are impossible.

It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender, durable and delightful, courageous and compassionate—wimping out on truth when we ought to be lionhearted, or wrangling when we ought to be weeping.

Oh, for Christians and pas tors whose might in the truth is matched by their meekness. Whose theological acumen is matched by their manifest contrition. Whose heights of intellect are matched by their depths of humility. Yes, and the other way around!—whose relational warmth is matched by their rigor of study, whose bent toward mercy is matched by the vigilance of their biblical discernment, and whose sense of humor is exceeded by the seriousness of their calling. I dream of durable, never-say-die defenders of true doctrine who are mainly known for the delight they have in God and the joy in God that they bring to the people of God—who enter controversy when necessary, not because they love ideas and arguments, but because they love Christ and the church.

It is a great thing to die; and, when flesh and heart fail, to have God for the strength of our heart, and our portion forever. I know whom I have believed, and he is able to keep that which I have committed against that great day. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me that day. 28

He once said that “there are but two lessons for Christians to learn: the one is, to enjoy God in everything; the other is, to enjoy everything in God.

The first country in the West (unless one counts ancient Ireland after its evangelization by St. Patrick)8 to morally and legally condemn the slave trade was Great Britain, a country whose abolition movement was led by an unapologetic and ferociously evangelical Christian, William Wilberforce.

In the closing years of John Wesley’s life, he became a friend of William Wilberforce. In England, Wilberforce was a great champion of freedom for slaves before the American Civil War. He was subjected to a vicious campaign by slave traders and others whose powerful commercial interests were threatened. Rumors were spread that he was a wife-beater. His character, morals, and motives were repeatedly smeared during some twenty years of pitched battles. From his deathbed, John Wesley wrote to Wilberforce, “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be won out by the opposition of men and devils; but if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Be not weary in well-doing.” William Wilberforce never forgot those words of John Wesley. They kept him going even when all the forces of hell were arrayed against him. The

If there is no passionate love for Christ at the center of everything, we will only jingle and jangle our way across the world, merely making a noise as we go

If we don’t understand how seriously ill we are, we don’t pursue the remedy with the required diligence. If we are slightly ill, we take an aspirin. If we are dying, we passionately pursue a cure. The cure is not forced on us; it is offered to us.4

When we come to grips with the true state of our condition, we are ready to fully appreciate what God has done to rescue us from ourselves. It is imperative that we take seriously our true condition as fallen human beings.

The Bible specifically states that sin cannot be blamed on how God made us. “When tempted, no one should say ‘God is tempting me’ ” (Jas. 1:13). God wants us to come to terms with our sin and embrace the solution He has provided that can save us from judgment.

Some things God has revealed; others remain mysteries.

It teaches that man is an apostate creature, fallen from his original innocence, degraded in his nature, depraved in his thinking, prone toward evil, not good, and impacted by sin to the very core of his being.

The result is that in the Christian world in the West, we settle for a cultural version of Christianity that is far from the real thing.

I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Rom. 7:18). As someone has said, even the spirituality we do possess is corrupted by our nature. We have nothing to brag about. On the contrary, God must always give us grace to bear with our faults and mercy to forgive our sins.

When we see around us the tragedy of not taking this truth seriously and when we experience within ourselves the veracity of the truth, we will be positioned to move forward in our spiritual progress. We also will have a different attitude toward those who more obviously struggle in areas where we might only secretly have a problem. Day by day, an awareness of our condition will help us grow spiritually.

When you put it together, it looks like this: Our natural condition is weak and fallen and our temptations are numerous; God is infinitely holy, yet He offers forgiveness, grace and enabling power to those who get honest with Him and are willing to repent.

Some are obviously living in bondage. Others give the appearance that they have overcome such problems. But the fact remains that even if it is not apparent in a person’s outward behavior, this is the true state of all our hearts.

Only an unwillingness to be open and honest can keep us from the conclusion that both reason and experience tell us that what the Bible says about us is true. We are without excuse if we remain in denial.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). How can you measure the value of the good news of Christ? It is spoken of in the Bible as light in the darkness, freedom from slavery and life from death.