Angry but thankful

DEVOTION

ROMANS

ANGRY BUT THANKFUL

Rom 7:14-25

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

NIV

Again this seems as clear as mud. The idea which Paul is taking about is that although he is a born again believer in Christ Jesus and desires to do all the right things, he can’t help but see that he still sins. What’s up with that? How could we think we are any better the great Apostle Paul? All the desire in the world to keep ourselves from sinning is not going to help, we are still going to sin. The sin, however, is not the master of our spirit if we understand what Paul is saying. Our Spirit is in Christ and we desire to do all the right things, and not do any of the wrong things. But as long as we live in this body, we are going to find sin in ourselves. It almost sounds like Paul is making an excuse of being human and as such cannot stop from committing sin. Yet later in this letter Paul will say not to make any provision for the flesh. Is he contradicting himself? We think not, as he is saying his wants to do want is right, but fails and in failing he is upset with himself, but at the same time is thankful to God because of Jesus, who bears his and our sin. Saying that the reason we sin is because we are human and we cannot help ourselves is making an excuse. But to say I desire to not sin, but to do good should be our mindset. However, at the same time, sin in the body does not just happen by itself. Sin in the body seems to be a result of a decision of the mind.  However, Paul admits he is a wretched man and asks who will rescue him his body of death. Here we find the duel nature of humanism. The spirit and the body, and if we carry that through to being create in God’s image, our soul. Can the soul be defined as our personality or our mind? This leaves who we really are, our spirit who has a soul and lives in the body.  We, the spirit we, the true self, wants to live a sinless life because we want to imitate Christ. Yet the body is not willing to obey. The soul, the mind makes calls that the body listens to and sin happens. How wretched is that? But we too have to admit that we are so thankful that Jesus bears our sin and as the next sentence which Paul writes is therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We will spend more time on that latter, but we need to know as the members of our body seem to still be a slave to sin, our spirit wants to live with Christ and be holy and blameless. It is difficult to wrap our head around that, as if we have no control of our body. It like we keep going back and forth with this idea. Can we be saved and still sin? It seems that is the case, however back that sounds. We are never going to be perfect as long as we live in a body that has not been changed from corruptible to incorruptible, and that will not happen until we are taken up from this earth. So let us try our best to live rightly, not being pleased with our failures, but being thankful to God for Christ Jesus.