7.25-Are you a sinner? Do you sin? Do you ever need to seek forgiveness from God?

7.25-

There is a tendency in us as humans to compare ourselves with others who are worse people than we are and we congratulate ourselves that we are okay without any need for growth and change for the better.  It seems to me that God is trying to get His servants to be honest and humble about who they really are.  Their power comes from God.  There are several ways that great teachers would teach to stop the problem of arrogance and conceit.  We thank God for being His children by grace, but look for opportunities to improve our lives with God's help.


2 Chronicles 6.
³⁶ “When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that ^[s]they take them away captive to a land far off or near, ³⁷ if they ^[t]take thought in the land where they are taken captive, and repent and make supplication to You in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have committed iniquity and have acted wickedly’; ³⁸ if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been taken captive, and pray toward their land which You have given to their fathers and the city which You have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for Your name, ³⁹ then hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, their prayer and supplications, and maintain their cause and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.
⁴⁰ “Now, O my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.
⁴¹ “Now therefore arise, O Lord God, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your might; let Your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation and let Your godly ones rejoice in what is good.
⁴² “O Lord God, do not turn away the face of Your anointed; remember Your lovingkindness to Your servant David.”

Luke 18.
⁹ And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: ¹⁰ “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be ^[f]merciful to me, the sinner!’ ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Romans 3.
⁹ What then? ^[g]Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; ¹⁰ as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
¹¹ There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
¹² All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.”

Titus 3.
³ For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs ^[a]according to the hope of eternal life. 

Ephesians 2.

2 And you ^[a]were dead ^[b]in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you formerly walked according to the ^[c]course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, ^[d]indulging the desires of the flesh and of the ^[e]mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead ^[f]in our transgressions, made us alive together ^[g]with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and ^[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.