When we first get saved, we are excited about our new relationship with Christ and we love Him and desire to please Him.
So, we start reading and learning His Word.
Others teach us as well at our church.
So, we try real hard to obey Christ and please him, but we do so in our own strength.
When we take this approach to the Christian life, we end up crashing and burning.
In this 2-part blog, we want to look at Romans 7:13-25.
Please read these verses first because I will not be quoting them in this blog, but only summarizing them.
Paul uses himself as an example of trying to live in his own strength.
Before he was saved, he was a Pharisee who lived by his own strength; obeying the Law outwardly and with great zeal and self-confidence.
After he was saved, he now realized that Jesus is YAHWEH God of the Old Testament who became a man.
He now loves Jesus, and he starts living his Christian life by applying the only method he was use to as a Pharisee; trying really hard to please Jesus by obeying the Law.
He crashed and burned, and this is the account of it.
So, now we can learn from him what not to do, and then, in Chapter 8, he tells us the Biblical way to live by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We need to know the difference between several terms used in the Bible in order to understand this passage:
1) Old Man and New Man – Before we were saved, we were called an “Old Man.”
In our unsaved life we were connected to the first man, Adam.
Because of his sin, we are all born sinners, and our human spirit is dead to God and alive to Satan and sin.
The Old Man is all we used to be because of our connection to Adam.
It is our dead human spirit.
When we got saved, our Old Man was crucified with Christ, buried and then replaced with the New Man through our resurrection with Christ.
2) Flesh – All we are in our humanness when we are not filled with the Holy Spirit.
When we yield to the Holy Spirit, He empowers us to live victoriously.
When we yield to the power of sin, we live by our own strength and are defeated.
3) Power of Sin – Sin in the singular is used 34 times in Romans 6-8. Since the fall, sin became an inward power that tempts us to sin.
What Paul is describing in Romans 7:13-25 is his attempt to live for Jesus under the Law in his own strength, and he ends up a miserable defeated believer.
There are 2 different I’s in these verses.
The 1st “I” who does not desire to sin, which is his New Man in Christ in his human spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
The 2nd “I” is the one doing the things he doesn’t want to do; this is the fleshly “I”, which is his soul (mind, will and emotions) yielded to the power of sin.
Paul is teaching us here that we can’t experience victory in our Christian life and grow as believers if we live by our own will-power and strength.
When we yield to the power of sin, we live a fleshly life, and we stop growing in Christ.
We will be living like Paul, a miserable, defeated life.
Join me next time to learn how to walk in the power of the Spirit in victory.
Blessings!
Pastor Ken Keeler, Director of Church Ministries
we are enjoying this teaching greatly.one of those “for such a time as this” happenings. I believe there are a lot of people sorta stuck here and need help getting pulled out. Again, thank you….Russ &Penny
Thanks Russ and Penny, I praise the Lord that he is using me in your walk with Him!