Sin which dwells in me

"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing that I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other hand, with my flesh the law of sin." Romans 7:14-25

Oh how I can identify with this passage! I find myself doing the evil that I don't want to do more often than I want to confess. How many of us have evil habits or hobbies and we struggle to stop doing them? The Apostle Paul could identify with us. He's the one who wrote this scripture by the inspiration of God. It is a perfect explanation of the christian waging war against the sin which dwells within. If only the unrighteous could read this and understand. We struggle with sin more as christians than we did before. Before, we didn't fight the sin, we let it rule. Now as christians, we fight sin and are anguished when we fail and relent to sin again. Oh that I could banish the sin from me for good! Oh how I long to be able to do good all the time. However, we can find comfort in the very next words of Paul.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Romans 8:1-4