November 16

Daily Renewal

For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So this is the principle I have discovered: 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 my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. — Rom 7:19-25 BSB

Romans 7 reflects, as in a mirror, the inward struggle of the Christian soul who has not yet learned to fully appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. Notice how often the word “I” appears, and how there is no mention of the Holy Spirit, who strives against the flesh. This chapter describes the effort of a person trying to remain pure and holy through their own willpower and resolutions. But just as Satan cannot cast out Satan, the human will cannot exorcise its own evil.

Thankfully, we come to Romans 8, which is full of the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin, just as Romans 7 was full of human effort. Only by handing ourselves over to the Spirit of God can we become more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. As long as we rely on our own strength, we will experience the ups and downs, the fickleness and failures, so graphically described by the Apostle.

Why is the human soul so full of sin, and why can’t we deliver ourselves through our best efforts? We can’t fully explain it, but we find this “law of sin and death” at work within us, dragging us down into captivity. It’s a miserable experience to feel the current of sin pulling us downstream, despite our best efforts to resist. Who hasn’t experienced failure after earnestly desiring to do what is right? The bitterness of our sin often overwhelms the noble choices we aspire to make.

What comfort it is to know that the Spirit of God renews our inner being day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16), freeing us from the law of sin and death. This renewal is something we need daily. Hour by hour, we must seek a fresh infusion of the Holy Spirit’s power to overcome.

Prayer

O God, may I live very close to You today, not in the strength of my own resolutions, but by the anointing and indwelling of Your Holy Spirit. Teach me to abide in Christ, and if my wayward heart begins to stray, recall me before I go too far. Amen.