GOOD CONSCIENCE - Part 3

RESPONDING IN GOOD CONSCIENCE – Part 3

Sunday, October 20, 2013

  Lord, I have hidden Your Word in my heart, so that I might not sin against You, but I do. (Ps.119:11)

  Yes dear fellows, knowing Truth, I still have a personal problem with sinning. And at event it doesn’t always bother my self a great deal.

  The trouble is not with God’s law, the Truth of His Word, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I know is wrong and even hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows, proves, that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

  And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.  I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.  But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

  I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  I love God’s law with all my heart.  But there is another power[e] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.  Oh, what a miserable conflicted person I am at times! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. How fortunate I am to live redeemed by and in God’s grace! (Personally adapted from Apostle Paul’s Romans chapter 7 lament with thanksgiving. NLT)

  Do any of you identify with Paul and I?  EBB4