Wishful thinking /Actual Behavior

Romans 7:15-25

Romans 8

Romans 7:15-25Living Bible (TLB)

¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ 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.

¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. ²⁰ Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

²¹ It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. ²² I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; ^23-25 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^[a] by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.

The Gap

That area between what we think is good, right, what we think we should do and what we actually do in the present sense.

• ¹⁵ 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.
• ¹⁶ 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.
• ¹⁷ 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.
• ¹⁸ 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.
• ¹⁹ When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.
• ²⁰ Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.
• ²¹ It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

The War of New and Old

• ²² 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.

The Predicament

• Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in!
• Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature?

The Answer

• Thank God! It has been done^[a] by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.

Romans 8Living Bible (TLB)

8 So there is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus.

² For the power of the life-giving Spirit—and this power is mine through Christ Jesus—has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death.

³ We aren’t saved from sin’s grasp by knowing the commandments of God because we can’t and don’t keep them, but God put into effect a different plan to save us.

He sent his own Son in a human body like ours—except that ours are sinful—and destroyed sin’s control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins.

⁴ So now we can obey God’s laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us.

⁵ Those who let themselves be controlled by their lower natures live only to please themselves,

But those who follow after the Holy Spirit find themselves doing those things that please God.

⁶ Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace, but following after the old nature leads to death

⁷ because the old sinful nature within us is against God. It never did obey God’s laws and it never will.

⁸ That’s why those who are still under the control of their old sinful selves, bent on following their old evil desires, can never please God.

⁹ But you are not like that. You are controlled by your new nature if you have the Spirit of God living in you.

(And remember that if anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ living in him, he is not a Christian at all.)

¹⁰ Yet, even though Christ lives within you, your body will die because of sin; but your spirit will live, for Christ has pardoned it.^{[a] 11} And if the Spirit of God, who raised up Jesus from the dead, lives in you, he will make your dying bodies live again after you die, by means of this same Holy Spirit living within you.

¹² So, dear brothers, you have no obligations whatever to your old sinful nature to do what it begs you to do.

¹³ For if you keep on following it you are lost and will perish, but if through the power of the Holy Spirit you crush it and its evil deeds, you shall live.

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

¹⁵ And so we should not be like cringing, fearful slaves, but we should behave like God’s very own children, adopted into the bosom of his family, and calling to him, “Father, Father.”

¹⁶ For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children.

¹⁷ And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.