October 9

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? — Jer 17:9 BSB

The sin of our fallen nature is a profound mystery. We read about the mystery of iniquity as well as the mystery of godliness, and both have depths, lengths, and breadths beyond human understanding. Sin sometimes seems to lie dormant, only to awaken with renewed strength. Its nature is active, irritable, impatient, and restless. It takes on many forms, sinks into filthy places, hides in dark corners, and reveals itself through deceit, hypocrisy, and cunning. It’s selfish, reckless, mad, and insatiably greedy. These painful truths about sin are only learned through bitter personal experience.

True religion is found in understanding these two mysteries—the mystery of sin and the mystery of salvation. In the school of experience, we are constantly learning and forgetting these lessons. We can never fully grasp them, but we are never satisfied unless we keep pursuing a deeper knowledge of them. Yet, like chasing a rainbow, the more we seek, the more they seem to elude us. Thus, we experience the divine paradoxes: the wiser we become, the more we realize our foolishness (1 Cor. 3:18); the stronger we grow, the weaker we feel (2 Cor. 12:9-10); the more we possess, the less we seem to have (2 Cor. 6:10); the more bankrupt we are, the more fully we are forgiven (Luke 7:42); the more lost we feel, the more perfectly we are saved; and when we are most like little children, we are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:4).