good people

I am once and all conviced that there is absolutely no such thing as good people. My logic would be as follows, I would think most people would with maybe some deliberation consider me a "good" person yet I know the evil that exists in my heart and mind placing me so far from the aforementioned "good" standard that I could not touch "good" with a hundred foot pool. Assuming that I am not alone in my inner depraved and evil thoughts then my conclusion is that deep at the heart of all humanity is an incredible propensity toward evil hence sinfulness. Not that this is anything new, but I guess I had always hoped that there was more hope than I found in myself. It is a painful realization to come to grips not only with my own sinfulness, but the realization that most others are nearly as evil in their thought and private lives as I am. I find it incredible that anyone could ever be honest with themselves and be in any kind of relationship and still label mankind as "good." It takes either an incredible amount of pride or insincerety to look at the problem of sin and say no problem. Unfortunately the more you grow the harder it gets. Sometimes I would much rather throw away the Christian life and just pursue my own depravity. Much less fulfilling, but more pleasurable and it is conceivable that living such a way would bring much less heart ache. So in the end, it can not be a question of morality or even a question of good and evil, it really falls into relationship. What types of relationships do you have that will keep you from being devoured from your own sinfulness? Of course the easy Christian response is well Christ will do that, but what if he doesn't? I get sick of Christians sugar coating the truth and selling Jesus like He is some sort of elixir that will fix every problem we ever have if we just have faith or if we allow Him. I believe that there is a sense that the most Godly men and women look a lot more like David than Job. It is all we can do to call crawling back to God adulterers and murderers certainly in our hearts if not with our hands. How does this all work? Where is the hope? I guess the hope comes in the hope that in God lies a goodness and love that cannot be fathomed amidst our endless chasms of sin. There is a purity so great that though we know it we cannot pursue it as we ought. There is this sense that we were created for another kingdom, yet we constantly settle, maybe not settle maybe we just grovel in our own sinful state. We do battle in the heavenlies while on earth and we can't comprehend it. We lose more than we win, but we have already won. It is fairly mind blowing that what I can't do for myself God has done for me yet for now he has equipped with tools, truth, and relationships in order to try to someway fight a war that is over. What is that all about? Does God want me to prove myself worthy? I can't. Does he want me to prove my love? I try, but it is not the unfailing love that He has for me. In the end, I love evil because I love myself and my heart is evil, but in the midst of my greatness darkness there is that still small voice, sometimes very small reminding me that I don't have to do it. I don't have to win, it has been done for me. Grab hold of the victory, claim Christ as the victor or continue to fail on your own. So in the end the choice is mine or if anyone actually reads this I suppose the choice is ours. Continue struggling with evil and hating yourself or claiming the victory in Christ and loving the righteousness that we can claim through His redemption. So as bad as the suck gets, and the suck gets pretty bad, we must know that our hope is in Christ alone. He is the victor, even when we don't know it or refuse to admit it. It often takes me at least 24 hours -6 weeks to admit that I am struggling in a way that is beyond my control and my strength and that I can only be delivered by the hand of God.