THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.”
—Romans 7:15-16

IN THIS TEXT, the Apostle Paul is speaking about a believer. The believer is a person who desires to obey God’s Law and at the same time he hates his sin (Rom. 7:15, 19, 21). The believer also recognizes that, apart from the indwelling Holy Spirit, nothing good dwells in his humanity (Rom. 7:18). The believer sees rebellion (sin) in himself (Rom. 7:17, 20-22), yet he strives to serve Jesus Christ with his new mind (Rom. 7:25) since he is born of the Spirit and now has the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). According to Romans 1:18-21, 32; 3:10-20, none of these attitudes, attributes, and actions are ever used to describe the unbeliever. The Apostle Paul uses present tense verbs in verses 14-25 thereby indicating that he is describing his life as a Christian. He also uses the personal pronoun “I” to refer to himself as an example of the Christian life and struggle. 

THE APOSTLE PAUL is describing all Christians, from little children to older fathers (1 John 2:12-14), who realize how far short they fall when they honestly evaluate themselves by the standard of God’s Law. The Apostle Paul and all believers lament the fact that they are unable to love and serve the Lord in this life in a comprehensive manner. As Paul wrote, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:22-23). And again, in Galatians 5:17, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” As with the Apostle Paul, every Christian finds himself thinking, speaking, and doing things he does not approve of according to the standard of Scripture. Therefore, believers cry out with the Apostle Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:24-25).

AS JOHN NEWTON once wrote, “I am not what I ought to be. Ah, how imperfect and deficient. I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good. I am not what I hope to be. Soon I shall put off with mortality all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was –a slave to sin and Satan. And I can heartily join with the apostle and say that “by the grace of God I am what I am!” (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Tuesday Encouragement: March 11, 2025
In Christ,
Pastor S. Henry