Do you struggle with anger? I do.
I get so frustrated with myself. I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years now. Why am I still struggling with this sin?
Paul understood what I feel like. He wrote in Romans 7, “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.”
Can’t you almost sense Paul’s desperation in his struggle against sin? He says, “I don’t understand what I do! I can’t do what I want to do! And what I hate to do, that is what I do! I have the desire to do good, but I can’t carry it out!”
He goes on to write:
“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.”
This is why it is so hard to conquer sin. Paul says there are two laws waging war within me! In my heart and mind I do delight in God’s law….but the law of sin is waging war in my body, against God’s law!
We will always have a tension in this life, as we battle with the flesh and its sinful desires. There is a conflict within us.
Paul knew how this war would be won. He ended his confession with these words: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
We are all wretched men. We all feel the war that rages within. But Thanks be to God, it is Jesus who will rescue us from this body of death.
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