Why can’t I do what I want to do?
Most of the world’s problems, most of your problems, have to do not so much with not knowing what to do about them as they have with not being able to do what you know must be done.
● Need more money? – Organize a yard sale, get a second job, make a budget…
● Need to follow a budget? – Only spend the allotted amount in each category.
● Need to lose some weight? – Go on a diet.
● Need to fix the toilet? – Fix the toilet. (Or hire a plumber who knows what he’s doing!)
● Need to get rid of all that hoarded junk in the garage? – Get out there and start sorting and tossing.
If you’ve faced any of the above it probably didn’t take long for you to figure out the solution, but the tough bit has been to get yourself to do what you know you must do!
Paul struggled with the same enigma (Now read this carefully; it’s a head twister!):
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do… it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. … I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. …I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing… it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Rom. 7:15-20).
Now Paul is not flippantly excusing himself here, saying, “Hey, it’s not me, it’s sin,” like the old comic Flip Wilson’s “The devil made me do it!” No, Paul is here coming to the realization – the admission – that he finds himself, by nature, a sinner. Give a sinner a rule, and right away, by nature, the sinner wants to break it… to rebel… to assert one’s own covetous, self-seeking, pleasure hunting will over all else.
“What a wretched man I am!” Paul concludes (v. 24). Then he asks, “Who will rescue me…?” Paul knows, and is grateful: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25).
Human nature—fallen human nature – doesn’t like coming to this sort of admission. But It is mankind’s only solution – to everything… to problems global and problems personal. For over 2,000 years now the gospel has not changed. Though the world and its technologies have changed dramatically, the human heart has never changed. We are a lost world. The gospel is still vitally relevant, for Christ is our only Redemption.
Surrender to Him. Let Him do in you what He wants to do… in and through you. Therein only will you find true freedom. (See Galatians 2:20).
Press on…
Got a question? Use the Contact page and send It to me. We’ll search the Word for God’s answer.
thebrokenrunner 