Read Romans 3

If you question your depravity, check your attitude toward intrusions. Having a French origin, "intrude" emerges from two terms, meaning "to thrust in." An intrusion, therefore, is someone or something that thrusts itself into our world without permission, without an invitation, and refuses to be ignored.

Like the constant needs and demands of a child. I watched a young mother in a waiting room just last week. She was pregnant and had a toddler, plus one in diapers in her arms. Was she busy! Yet with incredible patience, that mother hung in there. Her whole world is one gigantic intrusion, I thought. I sure hope she's got a husband who understands...and helps her out!

I also wondered if that young mother realized that she was modelling an unforgettable display of Christ's message. Remember His words in Matthew 18:1-6? He flatly declares that receiving children is tantamount to receiving Him. Obviously, He believes they are worth it all, no matter how many intrusions they cause.

Not all agree. A syndicated columnist based in Chicago mentioned one such person in an article. He tells of meeting a smartly dressed 27-year-old woman about to be married to a man who had a five-year-old son by a previous marriage. Her attitude toward the boy?

"If I had $10,000 I would have the boy killed.... I've asked around and $10,000 is about what it costs to hire someone to kill someone else."

Thinking she might be trying to shock him with a sick joke, the columnist told her that her alleged humour was way off base.

"It's not a joke," she said. "I want him dead."

When he asked her why she was saying those things, it boiled down to intrusions. "The boy disrupts my life."

The columnist assumed that this was only a vicious fantasy. She really didn't have $10,000, did she? "No," she sighed, "I don't have the $10,000." But as she turned to leave, she added, "But I won't always not have the $10,000!"

Can you imagine the treatment she will give that bright, busy five-year-old boy?

Intrusions prove what the Bible has taught for centuries. Depravity is a universal disease...because sin has "thrust itself in."

Because sin "thrust itself in," God sent His Son into the world.

Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.