Have you ever tried “being good” for a long time? It’s hard isn’t it? It’s because we were born with a problem that only Jesus can help us with. Let’s turn to the Bible to find out about this problem.

Note: God made all of us from Adam, the first man. That is because He created him to be able to have children. When you think about it Adam is the great- great- great- great grandfather for all of us.

Note: God put the tree in the garden for a special reason. It was to show that He gave Adam and his wife free choice. He allowed them to separate from Him even though it hurt Him and made Him sad. He wouldn’t force them to love or obey Him.

Note: When Adam disobeyed God, he and his wife separated from Him and when they did... something happened to them. Their whole natures changed! Instead of being holy and good, their natures changed to being selfish. And because we all came from Adam, the same thing was passed on to us as well. Our nature is now different from the way God first created us.

Note: It doesn’t seem fair does it that Adam’s sin should fall on all of us, but we inherited his sinful nature. We may have inherited blue eyes from our moms and dads or even musical talent and our personalities. It’s the same with our old great –grandfather, Adam. We all inherited a “sinful nature”.

Note: It was not our fault that we were born with a sinful nature and God is not angry with us for it. Instead, because of His great love for us He came down to rescue us.

If you had a dog that you bred and she had puppies and all those puppies were born deformed, would you be angry at those poor little innocent puppies? No, of course not, and it’s the same with God. He created us, but because of Adam, our hearts are born “deformed”. So He decided on a plan where we could all be saved.

Note: No matter how hard we try to be good on our own—we can’t! Some of us may seem better than others but none of us are ever good enough to make it into heaven on our own.

Note: The problem is that we don’t realize that we have a problem. We will often compare ourselves with others to make ourselves look better.

Let’s say three of us were shooting arrows at a target in the sky. Onemaygoup75ft. Theothermaygouponly8ftand finally, the third shot it up l50 ft. We’d say that the third one was the real winner but what if the target...was the sun! Would it really matter how far our arrows went up? None of us can ever be good enough to make it to Heaven on our own.

We don’t know we have this problem until God tells us we do. We can’t change ourselves no matter how hard we try. We can only go to Jesus for help.

Note: The only reason that God’s word tells us that we are sinners is to show us how much we need Him. The next study will show us how God saved us and what wonderful news this is for us.

Conclusion: God created human beings to be perfect but when Adam disobeyed and separated himself from God, his whole nature changed from one that was holy and good to one that was selfish. Because Adam is our great- great- great grandfather, we are also born with Adam’s selfish nature. This is why we do bad things. God is not angry with us for being born selfish but wants to help us by giving us everything we need when we turn to Him.