Listening to what people want sometimes can be a great exercise in frustration. There was a description of a politician by another politician who called him a :suit with an appetite”. He was all “want”. Sadly that pretty much describes most of us. We want what we want. Sometimes we don’t know what we want and won’t be happy until we get it. God gives us gifts purely out of divine goodness and mercy without any merit or worthiness in us. Instead of using the gifts to glorify God and help our fellow men we use the gifts for themselves and enjoy them of themselves and forget why we get them.
Luther said it like this –
“The reason is that our nature has been so deeply curved in upon itself because of the viciousness of original sin that it not only turns the finest gifts of God in upon itself and enjoys them … indeed, it even uses God Himself to achieve these
aims, but it also seems to be ignorant of this very fact, that in acting so iniquitously, so perversely, and in such a depraved way, it is even seeking God for its own sake.”
