“I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank 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.”
– Romans 7:21-25
Paul doesn’t just confess his struggle—he identifies the source. He isolates the culprit of sin, not in his new nature, but in the members of his body. “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man,” he says, “but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind” (Romans 7:22–23). This is crucial. If we don’t learn to separate our redeemed spirit from our unredeemed flesh, we’ll wrongly believe that sin defines us. But Paul reminds us that we’ve been born again of incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23). The new “I” desires to please God. The struggle we feel is not proof of defeat—it’s proof of life. Only a believer can say, “Sin brings me back into captivity,” because only a believer has been set free.
Paul’s cry in verse 24—“Who will deliver me from this body of death?”—is not despair, it’s longing. He knows his spirit is fit for heaven, but his body is still unredeemed. That’s why we groan, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:4, “not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” Sin is like a shadow in the room, always watching, always ready to pounce when we try to do good. But it’s not who we are. It’s what we battle. And the battle itself is evidence of maturity. Thomas Watson once said, “God has not only chained up sin, but changed your nature.” The believer doesn’t just leave sin—they loathe it. That loathing is a mark of sanctification.
Don’t be discouraged by the struggle—be informed by it. You now know why you wrestle, what you wrestle with, and where it resides. It’s not in the new you—it’s in the humanness that remains. And one day, Jesus will deliver you from this body of death. Until then, keep your eyes on Him. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. Let that perspective free you from self-condemnation and fuel your pursuit of holiness. Romans 8 is coming—and with it, the power of the Spirit to walk in victory.
“The more holy a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.” – C.H. Spurgeon
surrendered devotions 