"Why do Christians do evil things, like war, or murder, or theft?"
Mankind has "fallen". We are born into a sinful state. Man is a creature that sins, just like a fish is a creature that swims. But this was not the intention. We messed it up.
But now, unless we put on the mindset of our Father DAILY, we will default back to our natural "fallen" state. We are born to do it. Just like breathing.
Do you have to teach a child to be bad? Nope. Comes natural. We even think it's cute:---
We see little Bobby with cookie crumbs on his face...
Parent: "Bobby, did you eat the cookies?"
Bobby: "No, mommy. It must have been a cookie monster, or maybe an alien."
Parent: (to themselves) aw, that's cute.
Seems harmless, right? But even cute little lies are sin. Here's the thing: sin cannot exist where there is a sinless being/creator, it is destroyed automatically, like darkness in a room scattering away once a light is lit. When sin is destroyed, whatever vessel it inhabits is destroyed too. For our protection alone, God keeps a physical distance (we can't stand next to a nuclear blast, or the sun). Instead, we have his Spirit.
Another example:
A two year old quits playing with a toy, so another child picks it up and plays with it. What does the two year old do? They freak out, right? Even if they want nothing to do with the toy, SPITE takes over. They can't help it because natural human sin compels them in the physical. This is solely in mankind, I've yet to see spite in the animal kingdom (not to be confused with instinct--if a bear cub is done with a stick, he doesn't care if another cub plays with it...food is different story of course--his instinct tells him he'll need that food to survive).
Sin grows in us as we grow older. It becomes strong. Secular forces won't let us call it sin. Instead we try to diagnose it or medicate it (I'm a big believer in modern medicine by the way...we'll cover that in another post). We are not capable of putting our sin in check: we weren't designed to do so. Only the Holy Spirit can do that.
We were created to dwell with God, the Father. Created to have families and live our lives, the whole time dwelling in His presence. But we ruined it (yes, Adam and Eve were real--they weren't dumb, and you would have done the same thing. Of course, we'll cover that in another post). So now, we are forced to fight whatever ailments we receive while we form in the womb. His holy grace is not there like it was designed to be. Now we are born with anger issues, leukemia, diseases, etc.. But He gives us the Spirit to handle the things we were never designed to handle. Let me say that again: We are simply not designed to handle some of the grief we must endure in this world: pain, lust, temptation, perversion, sickness, etc. But with the Spirit he provides us, an "armor" if you will, we overcome.
The Holy Spirit is the key to getting through this realm as we march into eternity. The things we endure here may very well determine our eternal purpose. Perhaps your duties in eternity require more steadfastness than my duties in eternity. The process of forging your spiritual steel may be more extreme than the process I go through. But some of us definitely go through more, much more, than others. But when we finally start walking right with the Holy Spirit, it will not only comfort us and allow us to endure, but it will also convict us into doing things that are beneficial to the existence of ourselves and our fellow man. HOWEVER, when we repel the spirit, those sinful mannerisms come right back.
Our heart is not a vacuum. It's a home for the Spirit. But if we lose the Spirit, the heart will not remain empty. Something will fill it.
--til next time.