15 Bible Verses about People's Inability To Serve God

So Joshua told the people, "You will not be able to serve the LORD, because he is a God of Holiness. He is a jealous God, and he will forgive neither your transgressions nor your sins.

"You know that my father David was unable to build a temple dedicated to the LORD his God because he was busy fighting wars all around him until the LORD defeated his enemies.

so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, since the glory of the LORD filled the LORD's Temple.

That is why the mind that focuses on human nature is hostile toward God. It refuses to submit to the authority of God's Law because it is powerless to do so.

Indeed, those who are under the control of human nature cannot please God.

For what the Law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did. By sending his own Son in the form of humanity, he condemned sin by being incarnate,

He told them, "Keep on struggling to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you that many people will try to enter, but won't be able to do so.

For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, the Messiah died for the ungodly.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as his own life, he can't be my disciple.

Whoever doesn't carry his cross and follow me can't be my disciple.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him to life on the last day.

"Abide in me, and I will abide in you. Just as the branch cannot produce fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who abides in me while I abide in him produces much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

"I know what you've been doing. Look! I have put in front of you an open door that no one can shut. You have only a little strength, but you have obeyed my word and have not denied my name.

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but I cannot carry it out.