Willpower Alone Won’t Solve My Sinful Nature

In review of Romans 7:22-23 it says, “I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.”

Bottom Line:

Even though you can love God’s law with all your heart, there is a part of you that fights against this. It makes you captive to sin that dwells deep within you.

What this means to me:

While I delight in God’s word in my heart, I still have something that fights against this new delight. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still deeply rooted within me.

I have a war inside me that will rage for my entire life. It’s between who I used to be and who I've become in Jesus Christ. Paul, one of the most prominent missionaries in the history of Christianity and the author of most of the New Testament, also battled with this same thing.

The Bible says in Romans 7:22-23, “I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me” (Romans 7:22-23 NLT).

This problem will always be present in my life. I’ll always battle this, I’ll never outgrow it. I won’t be able to read enough Scripture to make this temptations go away. And I won’t be able to hide from them.

So, until I get to Heaven, I’m stuck with this all-out battle between these two natures. I’ve been a believer for a long time, but I know that my old nature is still there. This old nature wants me to be prideful, lustful, self-centered, deceptive, and just downright sinful sometimes.

So what can I do about this?

Willpower alone won’t solve the problem. Just because I want to change and put everything into making that change doesn't mean I’ll make the change. It may work for a bit, but it never lasts. I always end up getting tired and stop my manual efforts.

What I’m learning is that the best way to battle this is to choose to follow my new nature, meaning I choose not to follow my old nature. So, if I’m tempted with something, I need to immediately remove myself from that temptation, I in essence starve the old self. So If, I’m tempted with pride, I remember my dependence upon God, which should keep my old nature

from cropping up.

Today, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me recognize when my old nature starts to crop up. I ask him for his help to find a substitution from my new nature that can help squelch it.