Struggling With Sin

Arguably the most prolific missionary ever made a statement concerning his own personal dealings with sin, “O what a wretched man I am!” He said, “The thing that I want to do (for God) I don’t do. And the thing that I don't want to do (sin), I do.” In a very gut-wrenching confession and cry out to God in Romans 7, Paul does everything, but name his sin. —- The Bible isn’t so easy on all of the characters of the Bible. A few of them were very admirable in their love and pursuit of God, but we remember them by their one or two sins (goof-ups, mess-ups, missteps, etc.). Every sin, as David said, is against God. We judge how such a blessed person could commit such an atrocity against the God that they say they love. However, Paul is spared the embarrassment of having that sin or sins which so “easily beset” him recorded for all to see. Good for him! —- Some of us might say that he is only human, while others would say that they couldn’t believe he did such a thing. The mind is a terrible thing! —- The inconvenient truth is that we all struggle with sin. The Word of God uses the guy that most believers would think did not struggle with sin (perhaps because he was too busy) to stymie the notion that some people don’t struggle with sin. Paul makes himself sound like a gossiping-lying-conniving-drug and porn-addicted sinner with his confessional “O what a wretched man I am!” Right there he relates to every christian man and woman at some time or season of their life. In the flesh, we all know that sin comes and goes, rages and passes away like too much or not enough hormones in the human body. All we can do is cry out for mercy, because it is beyond our control. Time or a doctor might help with our hormonal adjustment, but it takes the Great Physician to deal “with this body of death” that envelopes the believer. The Good News is not that Paul was just like us. The Good News is that he cried out, and God answered. Most importantly, he could say, “Thanks be to God—- through our Lord Jesus Christ!” No matter what you are going through the code word for a rescue is always JESUS.