Do you ever if like you’re in a struggle within yourselves? At times I find myself doing things I hate. This daily, frustrating struggle is proof of something spiritual is going on and it drives me to depend solely on God’s grace.
Paul puts it this way in Romans 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do -this I keep on doing.”
It the frustrating reality of the flesh. It makes us feel like we’re stuck in a spiritual tug of war. Paul perfectly captures the agonizing dilemma of the human condition in all of us. Even after we experience the grace of salvation, we still have a “flesh” – the lingering pull of our old, fallen nature. It often feels like a daily war where our mind desires to please God, but our human weakness wages war against the desire.
I think it’s proof of Spiritual life.
When we fall back into the same old patterns of failing to live up to our own spiritual standards, it is very easy to feel defeated and wonder if we’re really saved at all. But a dead person feels no resistance. The very fact that we grieve sin, wrestle with temptation, and want to do the right thing isn’t a sign of spiritual failure. I think it’s hard evidence that the Holy Spirit is alive and at work inside us.
Through it all there’s the danger of self-reliance. The trap many believers fall into is trying to achieve holiness through sheer willpower. We can make enthusiastic promises to God that we will do better, only to fail again. Romans 7 teaches us that our own strength is insufficient to conquer our flesh. The struggle within ourselves exists to teach us a valuable lesson – that we cannot do it on our own.
The ultimate rescue.
We see Paul’s anguish peak when we cries out in Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” He immediately answers his own question. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our savior.”
Maybe our daily struggle is an invitation to rely on grace rather than our own strength. When we have daily struggles it keeps us returning to the Cross, reminding us that our victory is found in Jesus alone.
From Pity to Praise 