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Did God create us unable to keep his law?
No, but because of the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all of creation is fallen; we are all born in sin and guilt, corrupt in our nature and unable to keep God’s law. (Romans 5:12) (from here)

There was a time when we had not yet acquired a liking for sin, when it sat there a nameless possibility without nothing that would have us look again. I think that in that time it must have been less than that - everything then was so good and right and satisfying that I reckon sin went utterly unnoticed. As our forefathers gazed around at the loveliness of the world, their eyes brushed past it but without registering anything at all, for there was nothing - nothing! - they lacked.

And then Satan came along and gave it a little polish with his lying rags. He photoshopped it, making it suggest a brighter promise, an empowering autonomy. There is more truth in today's photoshopping, for the world now is messed-up and we do lack. But then there was no lack. There was no lack. Yet to have a 'better', you need a 'less-good', and that was the lie Satan got our forefathers to believe - a lie about the world, a lie about what he had to offer, a lie about themselves, and a lie about God. And because God had made the world with this couple not only as the first people, but also the representative people, it has come to us all. They acted in our name. We are born with the guilt of it and we are born with it. Our snatching toys off other kids and screaming "MINE!" about things that aren't ours isn't somehow cute - it's a common evil. We are incurably selfish and egoist and that's just how it is for us. We're not like this 'cos someone is making us, but because we want to be. We do the things we do because we want to. And there is no hope: it's so fixedly and fundamentally part of us. We are lost.

And now in Jesus we have hope. And we can chose the right and want the good. And he has undone and made new all that the first man destroyed. Because of him, the world is utterly changed. It's like a story but it is real. There was a day two thousand years ago when everything changed.

It's so strange, Lord. So unlikely... until I look around and see what it explains. And look to my own heart: what it is now, what it was. Thank you.