War Games

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
Romans 7 (click the link)


KEY VERSES:
So I find this law at work: Although 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 me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-24, NIV)


REFLECTIONS:
The Apostle Paul makes it clear that my “sin” isn’t merely a character flaw, an immaturity, or a bad habit, but it is in fact a malevolent force inside me. Sin is described as seizing the opportunity to produce in me every covetous desire to put me to death. In verse 14, Paul returns to the imagery he used at the end of chapter 6, saying how we are sold as slaves to sin. He uses this imagery to illustrate how we are weak in our natural selves.

When it comes to my own struggles against sin, I want to think that I can “fix myself” and that I have enough willpower to keep myself from sinning. I make resolves to fight my sin and “fix myself.” For instance, to fight my pride, I’ll resolve to not boast and not respond to my desire to always clear my name and make myself look better. To fight my emotional and mental laziness, I’ll resolve to get up early to do daily devotion and spend time each morning to think about and pray for my family and our church. To fight my insecurity, I’ll resolve to get to know and build stronger relationships with my loved ones, neighbors, or church family. I’ll make tons of resolves to fight against temptations, my self-centeredness, everything. And already I begin to treat my sins as if they’re simply bad habits that I can fix by replacing them with better habits.

However, this view of myself and of my sin is what Apostle Paul is writing against. My sin isn’t some passive choice that I can so easily chose against. Rather, it is a malevolent force that I must fight. And to think that I can so easily change myself on my own power is my pride—I want to think that I’m still ultimately in power and in control. But I am a slave to my sin—I am too weak in my natural self to “fix” myself. This is why, after all these years of being a Christ-follower, I still need to struggle: sin is in power and in control over my flesh. Sin is the law at work in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind (verse 23).

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In our natural bodies it is clear who is in power and who has control. What Paul describes in verses 15-20 rings true to my own life as well: “What I do is not the good I want to do, and the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” This is my active, malevolent sinful nature warring against me. Even when I was ignorant about the law, sin was already at work in me. But even now, as I know right and wrong and what I should do and what I shouldn’t do, I find that I cannot keep myself from sinning. It’s not merely a matter of knowing enough, about grasping some intellectual insight, or about how strong my willpower is. I want to be more loving and less proud, but even this I cannot keep my resolve for even one day. I still keep returning to the sin that I know. This is how I know that I am a slave in my natural self to sin—the more I sin, the harder of a master and driver it becomes.

What Paul describes I know very well. I know intellectually that I should love God with all my heart and mind and strength, and that I should love others as myself. But in my body, I find myself living a very different life. Even when I know that what I am doing is wrong, I still find myself doing it. The desire to do good is in me, but evil is there beside me waging against that desire. For instance, I am called to love God with all my mind and thoughts, and I desire that my mind may be pleasing and honoring to him. But I find in my thought life all kinds of evil—envy, lust, pride, deceit. I am also called to love others, and so I know that I need to be careful about my sarcasm and what I say because in my pride I can often end up saying things that can be offensive or hurtful to those I care about. But even as I know that I am called to love those God has entrusted to me, I find myself leaving my tongue unguarded and saying something that I later regret.

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Every day I sin. Every day my sin is before me. Every day there are things that I say and do and even more things that are left unsaid and undone that I regret. The struggle is never ending, and so I can understand Paul’s desperate cry, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (verse 24). There have been several times when, after facing the same struggle and the same sin for several years, I want to give in to the temptation and say that I’ll never change and just give up.

The truth is that my sin is a malevolent force that I can’t fight on my own. I’m a slave in the sinful nature to sin. But also at work is God’s law. Even as I am still in sin, I can attest to the goodness of his law that is holy and righteous and good. Even as I am still in sin, I can affirm the words of God’s law that they are true. And this returns to the illustration from marriage that Apostle Paul begins the chapter with. “For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code” (verses 5-6).

This is the starting point of the gospel—I can’t fix myself and I can’t save myself, but I don’t need to either. The law of sin was at work in me, and now through the body of Christ I have died to that law so that it no longer has authority over me. But now I can have the freedom of being a slave to God’s law (7:25-8:1). Through sharing in his death on the cross I have been rescued from this endless cycle of being overpowered and controlled by my sinful nature. Although I will continue to struggle with my sinful nature and I will have to continue to wage active war against it in my body, I know that my righteousness does not come from obedience but through the work of the crucified Christ and his resurrection.


PRAYER:
Jesus, I am so weak in my flesh. You know the ways that I so naturally and easily given to my selfish desires. You also know the ways that I stubbornly trying to fix myself. Thanks for not laughing at my repeated failures. Thanks for your patience with me as I flail about with my weak efforts at overcoming sin. Help me to remember today that victory is found only in you. I want to cling to your finished work on the cross. I want to hold fast to your work of defeating the power of sin. I want to rejoice continuously throughout this day in your resurrection power that has freed me to live above and beyond my fleshly desires. You are my war hero. I praise you. I thank you. I rest in your heroic work on my behalf.


WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom and I am married to a huge slacker. This devotional was supposed to be written by my lazy bride, but she wanted to sit on her duff and watch reruns of 24, while sipping on wine and painting her toenails. Next time you see Kate, please tell her to quit being so lazy.