I do not do what I want

Good morning friends,
I wish I had a really clever April fools message for you, but I don't. Today we do want to welcome Amy Fowler, our new Presbytery Leader, as she starts her new ministry with us to build a stronger church in our region.

Today Paul continues his musing on how the law provides an opportunity for sin to grow strong in us. He uses himself as an example: he wants to follow the law and do the right thing, but often the sinful desires inside him lead him in a different direction. I know that's an experience I can relate to. So the law is good, but still if cannot free us from sin. We need God to free us, and God frees us through Jesus Christ.

God bless,
Sam

Romans 7:13-25

13Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.


14For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.


21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.