I am among those who have difficulty distinguishing between total and utter depravity. In the lives of the unregenerate, probably including myself, I observe what appear to me to be both. It seems to me that people are as wicked as they could be, albeit not that God does not sovereignly restrain their deeds, and not that they necessarily always murder, rob, rape, enslave, etc., but that even the "good" deeds of the unregenerate are very, very far from being truly good in the eyes of God, and only by His Grace and Mercy do they not do things even worse outwardly speaking than they do.

Whatever is not of faith is sin, and whatever is not done for His Glory is sin; to not pray without ceasing is sin; to have an opportunity to do good, and not to do it, is sin, and so forth, and so on. Even God's own elect fall far short in all of these duties, and even such as John Bunyan noted that "[t]here is enough sin in my best prayer to send the whole world to hell," so if it is so for them, then how much infinitely more so for the unregenerate, who for the most part do not even seek faith or God's Glory or to commune with Him or to do good in His eyes?

Where am I going wrong here? I certainly don't want to. I wish for every thought, every attitude, and every action to be in full submission to God and to His Word. But I guess that on this issue I'm a little confused, and would welcome biblical correction if needed.

Also a bit confused about King David:

". . . No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." (1 John 3:15). Yet David is a man after God's own heart. (1 Sam. 13:14). And if I'm not mistaken, David kills Uriah *after* this is revealed to Samuel.

If I can reconcile this at all, it can only be by reference to:

* The Cross, where infinite Justice, and infinite Mercy, come together; and

* "Such were some of you, but . . . . " (1 Cor. 6:11); and

* "Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. " (Rom. 7:20)

Something still disturbs me about the possibility of even the elect being able to fall into such a sin as murder, though perhaps the fault is mine for not considering that things like anger and hatred and bitterness and division and may others differ from outright murder only at best in degree, but certainly not in kind.

Aspiring student of Christ