I want to do what is good, but I don’t.
I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
Romans 7:19 {NLT}

I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 {MSG, emphasis mine}

As I was driving the other day, I noticed cars swerving and moving out of the way of something. As I drove closer, I knew by the stench finding it’s way into my car, it was a dead skunk.

As I watched the cars in front of me do what they could to avoid the skunk, I couldn’t help but think of the irony.

We all know the stench a skunk leaves and we do whatever it takes to avoid being casualty of it’s permeating stink.

If we take that fact in relation to the “one thing” we’ve been talking about the last few days … why is it we don’t do whatever it takes to avoid the permeating stink our “one thing” leaves?

We know it’s bad for us. We know how we feel after we fall to the temptation, and yet we continue.

I wonder … outside of the obvious temptation of sin, if it’s because we haven’t fully surrendered our “one thing” to God? I wonder if we secretly don’t want to fully let go? And we think if we really surrender 110%, we may actually miss our “one thing?”

I’m a huge fan of Beth Moore’s daily devotional, Praying God’s Word Day by Day, and I glean many insights from it on a daily basis. I’d like to share a few things I’ve read from it recently:

“If our minds would absorb that we are accepted by God in Christ, our choices and behaviors would be profoundly affected.”

“By demanding that we seek His glory alone, God is calling us to overcome the natural temptation to seek our own.”

“God creates and activates a nagging dissatisfaction in us for an excellent reason — He wants us to come to repentance.”

“Our God of grace forgives the authentically repentant and ‘no, never’ counts their sins against them.”

“God cares more for our freedom than even we do. He initiated the saving relationship between His people and their liberator.”

This one thing we’ve been talking about? It’s our personal burden and bondage to the slavery of sin.

But the releasing of it and what comes with the releasing of it? Freedom. Chains that are lifted.

I’m going to close this series with one more passage from Praying God’s Word Day by Day:

O Lord, like David, help me rejoice in Your strength and say of You, “How great is my joy in the victories you give!” Father, please grant me the desire of my heart to be free from the strongholds in my life. Do not withhold the request of my lips {Psalm 21:1-2}.

For I know that my old self was crucified with You, so that this body of sin might be done away with, that I should no longer be a slave to sin–because anyone who has died has been freed from sin {Romans 6:6-7}.

I acknowledge that it is for freedom that Christ has set me free. Your desire is for me to stand firm and not let myself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery {Galatians 5:1}.

Help me, Lord. Empower me!

Thank God, Jesus can make all the difference!

This is part four in a four part series:
Part one
Part two
Part three

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