Romans 7:15-25
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 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. 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. 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.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 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. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 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.
Write or draw about a time in your life when you felt this way.
Do you think it’s possible for a Christian to ever feel this kind of anxiety? Remember this is Paul writing. Is he talking about his pre-Christian life; the moment of his conversion; a moment subsequent to his conversion; or a process we repeat often as we grow spiritually? (Good Christians can agree to disagree about these verses!)
Since Jesus calls us to pick up our cross daily, we must be open to the idea that each day may bring a fresh challenge to how we understand what it means to follow Jesus. The Alliance talks about a crisis experience—in the process of becoming sanctified, there is a moment, at conversion or later, in which one realizes the inability of real life apart from Christ. We have been writing checks our spirit cannot cash, and we need a bailout. Who will rescue us? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
The crisis is the moment we commit to separating from sin and dedicating ourselves to Jesus for everything. Crisis leads to surrender, and surrender leads to obedience. A.B. Simpson says, "This act of dedication should be made once for all, and then recognized as done and as including every subsequent act that we may ever renew as we receive more light in detail respecting His will concerning us. It is possible for us, once for all and not knowing perhaps one-thousandth part of all that it means, to give ourselves to God ..." (Wholly Sanctified, p31). God makes your vow good!
Point to Ponder: I have two candles on the altar: one has a single wick, and other--a fatter candle--has multiple wicks, hence multiple flames when it is lit. If holiness denotes dedication to God's service and the place where God is at work, then which is holier: the one-wick candle, or the multiple-wick candle? They're equally holy, since they are both dedicated to God's service. We tend to discount the early crisis moments in our lives, thinking, "I didn't really understand what I was doing!" However, God understood you committed all that you knew of at that time. Later, when you discovered more to your spiritual growth, you didn't become more holy; rather you were simply obedient to continue to give you life over. (You thought you were a one-wick candle; when you found out you had yet another wick, you asked God to light & use that one as well!) OK?
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