Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Sin
Irrespective of your position on other spirituality topics and issues, what personal behaviors do you regard as "sin"?[/b]
I know that I have
sin because my life's experience is exactly like Paul's in Romans 7.
Verse 15 -
"For what I work out, I do not ackowledge; for what I will, this I do not practice; but what I hate, this I do."
To one degree or another I do the things I hate (when apart from the Holy Spirit) and what I approve of morally I seem not to have to power to do.
Verse 16,17 -
"But if what I do not will, this I do, I agree with the law that it is good. Now then it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me."
I do sense a "force" compelling me to act against the morality that I delight in and know to be good. This force is the power of
sin in me.
Without the Holy Spirit's counter power, there is no hope for me.
Verse 19 -
" For I do not do the good which I will, but the evil which I do not will, this I practice."
Something drags me down (when apart from abiding in Christ). The mind agrees with the righteous behavior but another power within drags me down towards evil doing.
Verse 20 - 24 -
"But if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me.
I find then the law with me who wills to do the good, that is, the evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man,
But I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members.
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin."
I know a force works in my body dragging me down in
some area or another against my mental agreement with right living according to God's law.
I know that the law of sin is more powerful than the law of my mind to agree with the goodness of God's law. A stronger law is needed to overcome the power of sin -
"the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:2)