"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done" (Romans 1:28).
The human condition is pitiable. We are forever seeking after our own pleasures, unaware that all along we're actually chasing our own demise. We want what is wrong for us, spurning what is good, and so we destroy ourselves piece by piece. It's a long, agonizing process that consumes our lives. In an effort to squeeze as much from our short lives as possible, we're completely missing what it truly means to live.
Why are we like this? What in our makeup leaves us all scrambling for things that will only kill us?
It's because, in each of our hearts, we have all rejected God. We were made to worship our glorious Creator and live for Him. But instead, we live for ourselves. We worship our own pleasures. We reject the perfection He holds out to us in favor of the cheap imitations we have crafted on our own. We insist we don't need God--God can be whatever we choose.
This is what Paul writes about in Romans 1. He describes the despicable state of humanity, illustrating the wanton selfishness that all people exhibit. They care only for themselves, Paul says, which leads them to tear one another apart--and in so doing, destroy themselves.
The saddest part of Romans 1 is when Paul writes that eventually, God gives us up to our desires. If we keep rejecting Him and the way out He's provided, there comes a time when He'll give us what we want. He'll let us live in our depravity, happily feeding ourselves poison and condemning ourselves by our own choices.
This is why the gospel is so crucial. Left to our own devices, we will do nothing good. What we want deep down is to run away from God, to be allowed to rule ourselves. We're broken beyond understanding, and that manifests itself in everything we do.
Jesus is our only hope. Thank God for His mercy in not letting us stay in this horrible state! Jesus can set us free from this. We don't have to wallow in our self-inflicted destruction anymore. We can place our faith in the righteousness of Jesus and find in Him all the goodness we can never have on our own. We can know peace with God and return to the purpose for which we were created.
We can glorify God again through the grace of God alone.
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