God knows your sinfulness, but he hasn’t destroyed you

🛐 Daily Prayer: "Our Father, when we read your description of human nature we are sure it is true"

Author

SpurgeonBooks
January 26, 2026

Pray with Spurgeon

Daily Newsletter from SpurgeonBooks

This week, our prayers and Scripture readings each day will focus on total depravity, the idea that every part of our nature is corrupted by sin. Next week, we’ll highlight a different theme. Invite a friend to pray with you by sending them this link.

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Our Father, when we read your description of human nature we are sure it is true, for you have seen humanity ever since his fall and you have been grieved from the heart about them. At the same, you have such a love towards them that you did not judge him harshly; and every word that you have spoken must be according to truth. You have measured and calculated the iniquity of man, for you have laid it on your beloved Son; and we know that you have not laid upon him more than is necessary.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

He is thunderstruck at the discovery of his inbred sin, and proceeds to set it forth. This was not intended to justify himself, but it rather meant to complete the confession. It is as if he said, not only have I sinned this once, but I am in my very nature a sinner. The fountain of my life is polluted as well as its streams. My birth-tendencies are out of the square of equity; I naturally lean to forbidden things. Mine is a constitutional disease, rendering my very person obnoxious to thy wrath.

PRAY FOR THE NATIONS

This week, we’re praying for the Rao in China.

The Rao are a group of 13,000 people who, as far as we know, have never heard of Jesus. They haven’t rejected the gospel — they simply have never heard it and they never will unless someone brings it from the outside.

Pray that missionaries would go to the Rao.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Total depravity = only God can save

The doctrine of total depravity doesn’t mean that we are as sinful as possible — it means that every part of ourselves (our thinking, our feeling, our doing, etc.) was corrupted by original sin. This is an incredibly humbling doctrine, because it means that we never would have sought the Lord on our own if he didn’t seek us out first.

This is still how God works — no one can find him unless he finds us first. Does this mean that we don’t need to evangelize or share our faith? Absolutely not! God is going to use us to do the things that only he can do.

A great little book for wrapping your mind around this mind-boggling mystery is Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer. If you’ve struggled with the idea of God’s sovereignty over salvation in the past (especially what that means for evangelism), then I highly recommend you grab this book. It will help you love the Lord with all of your mind and obey him from the heart.

LAST WORD FROM SPURGEON

“Even in the holiest deeds we do there is still sin, but even then God is still forgiving.” — Charles Spurgeon