[HarleyD]

Rather...They don't care if believe the consequence for their action is hell.

That is a most excellent correction, thanks.

From our position,an impossible task,we don't even fully KNOW our own "deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked" heart.

Absolutely. In our Sunday School class last week our instructor stated that the more he learned about the holiness of God, the more he understood the depths of his sinfulness. Our hearts are deceitful. We like to think we're good people but we're really not. And you hear this today how we're made in the image of God and God made everything good. Therefore, we must be good. All this excludes the fall of man. All God did in the garden was simply showed man what would happen if man was given a choice between God and a piece of fruit.

As Michelangelo stated:

“I live in sin, to kill myself I live; no longer my life my own, but sin's; my good is given to me by heaven, my evil by myself, by my free will, of which I am deprived.”

The only difference between Christians and non-Christians is that their wills are bent towards different courses. God must bend our wills to follow Him. If one understands this then we know why non-believers choose to sin and we pray to God that He will show His grace and mercy to bend their wills towards Him. We understand their desire to sin. They want to sin because it is in their nature.

At the same time we should be praying that God who called us out of darkness will bend our wills ever more to His glorious light. There is no reason Christians should sin. Christ in His humanity showed us we could live a perfect life. Yet we sin. We grieve and quench the Spirit rather then be led by the Spirit as our Lord was. God gives us manna, the bread of the angels, but we want quail. But God is faithful and understanding as He slowly removes the sin from our lives.

Non-believers cannot understand the deceitfulness of their hearts. Christians sometime misses this same point as well. We are constantly warned to be on guard.

[mitch5501]

"Non-believers cannot understand the deceitfulness of their hearts."

No small wonder when the god of this world constantly holds up as the paragon of everything 'good' in humanity..."follow your heart".

"Christians sometime misses this same point as well."

Because faith does indeed come by hearing.Because deep in the unknowable heart people will trust the most what they hear the most.Wether they know it or not.

"We are constantly warned to be on guard."

Indeed we are but how many are inclined to examine EVERYTHING they hear? To hold captive thoughts and imaginations,to turn them over,thoroughly inspect and evaluate them as to wether they honour God or not? Whilst all the while our own deceitfull heart whispers that all these thoughts 'you own' to shame and burn our consciences.To cause us to hide within ourselves.Yet all things are open and naked to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.In the middle of that terrifying 'hiding yet naked before God' stands Jesus Christ.

Thankyou both for your responses,you need not know the details but you did more of a service than you know toward me right now.A wonderful moment! Praise God!