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Something that will help us all stay connected - keep up the discussion – on the Live Stream. Like, follow, and share these morning devotions. And don’t forget to check in @ Richland Church of the Nazarene. If you think about it, you should comment in the video – whenever you watch this video – and let us know where you’ve seen God lately. I’m looking for you to be looking for what I call God sightings… Put it in the comments.
The struggle is real! That’s kind of a strange statement. And yet, Paul talks about the real struggle that we all share when inside our souls there is a war raging between living holy and sinning.
Romans 7:14-25 (NLT) So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 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. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
I usually have to read this in small bits because most times when I read this, I get dizzy. I get so dizzy because it seems as if Paul is writing in circles. I do what I don’t want to do, I don’t do what I want to do… There’s a war raging within and so on and so forth. Sometimes I wish I could read the Greek and Hebrew so I could study this in it’s original language just to see if – it made more sense. It probably doesn’t, but for now I just have to trust those who can read this in it’s original languages to translate an interpret what Paul is trying to communicate here.
I want to have a discussion on sin, but that is going to be for another time. We will get to it I’m certain just not today, other than to say here Paul is dealing with what we would call Original Sin. He’s talking about the part of us that is enticed or drawn to do wrong - the old human nature. When we walk through the gate of salvation, and make that decision to follow Christ, often times there is a war within us between living the way we always have and living the life of holiness God’s Word calls us to live as newly born disciples.
In essence in this Scripture – and here’s where we will end today – Paul is telling us that on our own strength there is absolutely no way we can defeat the power of sin. The only way is to accept the rescue God supplies, by way of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.