April 20 – Fallen (Romans 3:10-18)

“There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”(Ecclesiastes 7:20)

IN WORD:
Ecclesiastes is a depressing book. No one can accuse it of pious platitudes designed to put a positive spin on the world around us. It tells the truth, at least from the perspective of where a fallen humanity sits. If we depend on our eyes for the truth, we will end up saying the same things as “the Teacher” who wrote it: “Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
The good thing about Ecclesiastes is that it sends us in search of a Savior. In its cold, hard assessment of who we are, it drives us toward the only One who can remedy our situation. But in order to know Him, we first need to embrace the harsh reality: “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”
We accept this truth as basic, but we hardly live like we believe it. We put our hopes in politicians and policies. We admire entertainers and athletes as role models. We feed on the affections of friends and loved ones. We build up our own potential as the thing that, if we apply ourselves diligently enough, will make our lives meaningful. We invest such extreme emotions in fellow human beings — and ourselves — forgetting one critical foundation stone on which the gospel is laid: Every human being has the potential, even the probability, of letting us down.

IN DEED:
It’s only natural. We take our eyes off the invisible God and put them on visible mankind. We expect our dreams and desires to be fulfilled by others, or at least by ourselves. We develop a worldly focus and invest our energies into the plans, people, and places of this planet. Then, when we least expect it, our dreams are shattered. We should have expected that. No human being can live up to the expectations we have. No one is righteous enough.
There is one exception, of course. It’s the exception Ecclesiastes points us to: the Savior sent by God. In a fallen world, we need to keep turning our eyes toward Him — for everything. He will never disappoint us.

“We are not part of a nice, neat creation . . . ; we are part of a mutinous world where rebellion against God is the order of the day.” -Samuel Shoemaker-