{"id":225494,"date":"2024-06-18T09:23:35","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T16:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vayhub.us\/rdpt22\/?p=225494"},"modified":"2024-06-18T09:23:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T16:23:37","slug":"ra12d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vayhub.us\/rdpt22\/ra12d","title":{"rendered":"RA12d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why are we struggling with sins (and not surrendering)?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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16<\/sup>Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17<\/sup>So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me… 20<\/sup>Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me… 22<\/sup>For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23<\/sup>but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24<\/sup>Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25<\/sup>Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!<\/p>\nRomans 7:16-17, 20–25 (NIV)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In Romans 7:14-23, Paul lays out the inner struggle that every believer faces. On one hand, as Christians, we now identify with God’s law in a way that was impossible before conversion. We see it as “spiritual” (Romans 7:14), desire to keep it (Romans 7:15, 18), and agree that it is good (Romans 7:16). Paul even says that in his “inner being” or “true self,” he delights in God’s law (Romans 7:22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Paul also acknowledges a powerful force of sin and rebellion still at work within him. He recognizes the reality of conflicting desires, but asserts that for Christians, our deepest identity, the “true self”, is now found in Christ. The sinful desires are no longer the true “him” (Romans 7:20). Though sin remains a strong influence, it no longer controls the believer’s core identity and life. Even in defeat, the Christian has a new consciousness: the real “I” loves God’s law, while sin is the unwelcome intruder (Romans 7:23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet this ongoing struggle can be discouraging. Paul describes it in stark terms, saying, “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin” (Romans 7:14). Some may wonder, if even the great apostle struggled in this way, why bother striving for holiness? Isn’t sin’s presence in our lives just normal and inevitable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it’s true that no believer, not even Paul, achieves sinless perfection in this life, this fact should never lead us to complacency or “sinful normativism.” Here’s why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n