Romans 1
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles [idol worship...today, self worship most prevalent imho].
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. [see the cycle...the spiral downward a person goes through rejecting TRUTH?]
32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Depravity from dictionary.com: de·prave 
[di-preyv] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used with object), -praved, -prav·ing.
| 1. | to make morally bad or evil; vitiate; corrupt. |
| 2. | Obsolete. to defame. |
Well…so, this is related the post a few down on “RAIN” and comments. It got me thinking.
Deprave: to make morally bad or evil, to corrupt…the downward cycle into moral looseness. You know, we act so enlightened in our “free thinking” and “broad thinking” and “sensitivity”.
“Close-minded” is the worst insult you can case on a person. What is close-minded? Anyone who has a firm opinon and will not be moved based on popular opinion or, at times, situational ethics?
Conservative, family- oriented Christianity is defined, even by other Christian writers at times with ‘close minded’, angry, and intolerant people! Oh! That saddens me! And that’s why we DO need to keep speaking and talking with those whose views are different from ours in a calm, respectful, but engaged manner.
Those who “present” the group differently “don’t like to argue” to try to prove that perception wrong. Policies are made based on stereotypes of vocal and pursuasive charicatures who WILL fight the fight.
Will we fight the fight for public policy? Is it important? I think so.
As God calls each person to get involved, they should. Keep speaking truth. Keep praying. Keep being informed. Your states legislative bulletin, though available, is not broadly subscribed to, unfortunately.
I’ve grown very lax since college…closed my eyes…got tired of the “pork” and the mess, felt too uninformed…and…the innocent suffer because of our lack of priority, involvement, willingness to “argue”.
To argue is not always bad thing. It’s politics. We’ve gotten weak in our willingness to pursuade.
I repent. Help me, Lord! There ARE moral absolutes. There ARE priority issues of paramount significance to keep our nation from this depravity cycle, and as I see it, we have not much further to go in America.
We CAN come under the judgement of God and his patience has limits. In mercy, he remembers justice.
~posted by Maggie
What an incredibly “heavy” post! But, so true!
— May God help us to walk in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
— May God help us to shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the word of truth.
— May God help us to sound like Jesus when to recalcitrant souls we report that Jesus said, “Come to me…”
This is some intense thinking. I see the “spiral” especially in the last four words of verse 31. The word of God is sharper than a 2 edged sword, able to pierce to the distinction between soul and spirit, bone and marrow… and take us to the light when we’re in the dark. This is a great correction text it’s so encouraging. Thanks.
Diana