Psalm 143:10 asks help me to do Your will, for You are my God.

To obey God and live a life pleasing to Him is a very difficult objective. God Himself said it would be hard when He described the road that leads to life as being narrow and hard thus observing only a few were upon it.

The Christian religion separates itself from the secular philosophy of inherent goodness.

Modern education, media and psychology teach that people are basically good but that the environment, is what makes people bad. This environment could be parents, Church, school, neighborhood or government. People do bad things because they have had bad experiences and people would do only good things if they always had good experiences they believe.

So why did the first person go bad?

Christianity teaches people are born inherently sinful, prone to selfishness which leads to rebellion against God and enmity with our neighbor. All of us who have children know this to be true. We never teach them to bully, hoard, steal, or rebel yet from infancy they demonstrate these inherent traits in their relationships with other children and their parents.

The good news is that God wants us good and has promised to provide us the means for being good as He defines it.

His definition of what is good is found in the Bible. His strength for doing it is found in Him through His Spirit made possible through the sacrificial work of the Son. Yet we live in these bodies that are from birth inherently bent toward self and away from what is good.

Herein lies the struggle.

Until we pass from this life to the next where God promises a new body that is incorruptible we who desire to be good and to do good must seek God for help and wrestle daily against our natural selves that wants nothing to do with God or His goodness.