I feels ya, Paul

Sometimes when we read about a person in the Bible, or we read some of the stuff someone wrote in the Bible, we tend to put them on a pedestal, making them into someone they weren't.

Paul, who wrote a big chunk of the New Testament, is one such person.

But after reading this section in Romans 7 – really reading it – I thought to myself, this guy sounds just like me!

The best thing about this section is what Paul says at the end of it – I may be a rot gut sinner, but Jesus makes a way for even a rot gut sinner like me.

Yeah, I feels ya, Paul, I feels ya...

Romans 7

14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good.

The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.

15 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 hate.

16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.

17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

  18 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.

19 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.

20 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.

  21 I have discovered this principle of life...

that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

22 I love God's law with all my heart.

23 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.

24 Oh, what a miserable person I am!

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

25 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.