REFLECTIONS

I’ve been laughing at myself lately for thinking I could somehow flip a switch and “sin less” now that I’ve accepted Jesus back into my life. What a blunder.

I have good intentions, but I rarely seem to get things right. It’s ironic that people who have good intentions and want to follow Jesus, continue to sin. It’s part of our nature — and always will be — no matter how hard we try.

Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best when he wrote:

“I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to — what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. Now if I am doing what I don’t want to do, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

It seems to me a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin.

So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.” (Romans 7:15-25)

To feel the freedom he is talking about, we must first accept that we’re all lovable sinners — loved by God and Jesus.

We must also accept that Jesus died to free us from bondage to sin, but that sin will always be a part of us.

We must chose to give our hearts to God completely and to have absolute faith in Jesus.

For only when we love God and believe in Jesus can we begin to become the person God wants us to be.

And becoming the person God wants us to be is the best freedom of all.