9. CAMPING OUT IN ROMANS :) :)

As I ventured into chapter seven today, I am not going into some deep debate about theology but it rings true in some aspects of my personal experiences.

	I am reminded of Steve Urkel's catch phrase on the 1989 sitcom, Family Matters, "Did I do that?" Or when you have asked your child,"Why did you do that?" and their response is, "I don't know." Well that's kind of what grips me in chapter seven.  It is wedged in between two other chapters that lay the groundwork for victory over sin.  Paul must of sandwiched in his personal assessment of dealing with sin.  Being the human that I am, I find my self in that rock and hard place at times. 14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!	“ Paul wasn’t struggling with sin because he was such a sinner. Paul was struggling because he was such a saint. Sin makes you numb. People who sin over and over again become desensitized to sin. The reason Paul’s “struggle” was so intense was not because he was caught in a web of sin, or because he thought of himself as hopelessly doomed to giving into the temptations that he faced. Rather, it was because Paul lived a life so sensitive to the Holy Spirit and passionate about the glory of God that he intensely felt his sins whenever he became aware that he had committed a sin (since he was not, of course, sinlessly perfect)."  ~J.I. Packer
	"The way you view God will eventually show up in the way you live you're life." ~A.W. Tozer