For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. (Romans 7:15 NAU)In Toward the Mark, Harry Foster shares his understanding of what is going on in Paul’s life.
Here was a man trying to achieve holiness by personal effort, struggling with all his might to fulfill God’s “holy and righteous and good” commandments (v.12), only to discover that the more he struggled, the worse his condition became. It was a losing battle, and no wonder, for it is not in the power of fallen human nature to conquer sin and live in holiness.Many times in our struggle against sin in our lives we will be bewildered and amazed at the depth of our sinfulness. We really want to live holy lives, free from sin, honoring God but instead we fall back into the same sins we actually hate when we are convicted.
The reality is that we all have a love-hate relationship with sin. At the time of our sin, we are deceived. We believe the sin we are being tempted toward is the best, most personally beneficial or satisfying choice. We choose what seems more attractive to us because we are choosing to think and act according to the flesh rather than according to the Spirit and the truth. At that moment, we believe the lies and we love the sin. Latter, we are convicted by the Spirit of God and we hate the sin we have committed against the God we love.
But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. (Romans 7:16 NAU)In our moments of sanity – biblical, Spirit led thinking, we see our sin for the ugly, destructive, disgusting offense that it is and we see that the law of God is beautiful, excellent, precious, useful, admirable, magnificent, good and right. We need a lot more moments of sanity! We need to saturate our thinking with the truth from the Word of God.
Next: (12) Jekyll & Hyde
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