October 27: Romans 7:18-25
Key Verse: Romans 7:23
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.
Devotion:
I am sure we all try to be good at times, and I am sure we also get into trouble at times because we are not good. As hard as we try to be good at everything we do, we will always fall short of the standard we set for ourselves and the standard God set for mankind! So what makes us go off the rails and do bad things, or things we should not do?
We could blame it on the temptations or the others around us who lead us off into those sinful acts, but what it comes down to in the end is we have a sinful nature which takes over at times and makes us do things we know are not right. We have the knowledge to stop ourselves but we don’t seem to have the strength to stop.
As this letter to the Romans puts it, we have a war raging inside us where our minds say it’s alright to do things so we go ahead and do them. We may know before hand, during or after the fact these things are wrong and work against God, but our minds say it’s going to be ok this time: this is our sinful nature taking over.
We can thank God Jesus came to give us a way out of this sinful trap we find ourselves in. He came to deliver us from those sins so we do not have to be a slave to this sinful nature which lives inside us. Instead we can draw on the strength Christ gives us through the Holy Spirit to avoid those situations and turn our backs on the sin. Through His blood we have been forgiven!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you do things you know are not right?
How often do you call out to Christ to help you avoid those times?