“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” – Romans 7:22-23
This is a familiar struggle for us! We want to do the right thing. We want to please God. We want to be good people. Yet we struggle with temptation and too often it wins! On our own, the outcome of this war is inevitable: no matter how hard we try and how disciplined we are, we inevitably fail to consistently defeat the temptations.
What are we to do? How can we be good people when we succumb to what we so often succumb to? That’s where the Good News comes in! When we put our faith in Christ, God not only forgives our sins, but He lives within us! Christ unites Himself with us and gives us the power to defeat the temptations of our bodies, minds, and hearts!
As Christians we won’t automatically defeat the sins we struggle with, but we have the power to do so! In Christ we are new creations with new natures and the power of God at our disposal to crucify those sins that continue to tempt us. However, we must choose to wage that battle, to fight back against the sins that attract us. We must wage that battle in the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our own strength and self-discipline (we know how that ends). We must draw near to God daily, deploy prayer, and walk in the Holy Spirit, letting Him defeat the temptations that continue to beckon.