But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. – Romans 7:17-20
I played a lot of Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Dig Dug, and Defender when I was in college. It was my procrastination strategy. Several times a week, I would pump quarter after quarter into these video games in an attempt to forget about all of the assignments and studying I had to do. For a few brief moments, I could fly through space and not have a looming term paper waiting to be written. If I had somehow managed to ween that down to a once or twice a week, I would have graduated with Summa Cum Laude on my transcript and had several hundred more dollars in my pocket.
Throughout my life, I had and continue to have several procrastination strategies. The strategies have evolved as technology evolved, but they’re still a way to procrastinate. From Fantasy Baseball Leagues, to home video game systems, all the way to Netflix, I can find a way to NOT do what I’m supposed to do.
In our passage from Romans, Paul discusses the struggle between the law and sin. He talks about how he has a desire to do what is right, but he finds himself doing what is wrong instead. He explains that the law is good, but sin is what causes him to do what he does not want to do. Paul concludes by saying that it is not him who is doing wrong, but sin living in him.
I believe all of us can relate to Paul’s dilemma. We try to do the right thing, but then we don’t. We try to avoid doing the wrong thing, but then we do it. Whether that thing is relatively harmless, like binging a show, or destructively harmful, like an addiction, we are often helpless to its power.
If we left this discussion at the end of chapter seven of Romans, we would find ourselves in despair. In the paraphrase of this chapter in The Message, Paul refers to it by saying “I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison.” The chapter ends with “Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.”
Thankfully, the lesson doesn’t stop at the end of chapter seven. Do yourself a favor and read the eighth chapter of Romans from start to finish. Paul’s previous seven chapters are a terse Sunday School lesson in law and sin. Paul’s eighth chapter is a glorious sermon that lifts the veil of darkness and lets the love of God shine through. We discover that God is on our side, fully restoring us, fully embracing us, fully loving us exactly where we are.
Go ahead and put down this devotional and pick up at chapter eight of Romans. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go play Tetris on my computer. For now, anyways…
Let us pray
Loving God, absolutely convince us that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and your love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Amen.
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