The Romance of Romans-Part 38

Romans Chapter 7 cont'd

I have discovered a principle of human nature: when I set out to do good, an evil within me sabotages my efforts. A deeper part of me would love to obey God's moral law, but another "parasitic" force uses my bodily members as its "host" and controls me. A civil war rages between my moral values and the sinful passions that operate through my body. And sin is winning the war! I am truly a miserable person! Who can liberate me from this living death? Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ will!"
So friends, this is the awful dilemma of anyone who tries to serve God apart from the Holy Spirit's presence and power living in him and flowing through him- his mind agrees with God's moral law, but another part of him is in bondage to sin and he is unable to live up to its standard.


Comments:
Many people have gotten uptight about whether the person to whom Paul refers could be a genuine Christian or not. It obviously could be a religiously-inclined person who is not. However, I really don't think that this is the main issue. Many true followers of Jesus have testified of having gone through phases in their post-conversion journey, that were characterized by an ongoing struggle with fleshly habits and addictions and cycles of moral defeat.

That's why I posit the notion that this whole Romans 7 dynamic is about getting past and rising above religious will power (human zeal power!) to externally perform "up to code"...irrespective of it being the mere will power of an unconverted or converted person. It's about transcending what has become known as "performance orientation". And...this normally doesn't happen in our souls without some deep and painful self-realizations over time through life experience. In the NT, Peter is the classic study on this as he: struts his stuff to Jesus; has Jesus prophesy both his future sin of betrayal in the courtyard and it's later positive outcome; experiences deep contrition and brokenness over his spiritual pride and lack of love; and then is restored and recommissioned by Jesus on the beach after his resurrection.

So...taking the principle in Romans 7 to this deeper level and more subtle application.... From my observations over 35 years as a spiritual counselor (and from my own experience), I am convinced that most believers do experience phases in which we serve God out of our own human zeal and enthusiasm (that does seemingly propel us forward in God for a season), only to later and rudely discover that this motivating force resulted in degrees of self-righteousness, legalism, judgmentalism, lack of love and mercy and...thereby...spiritual defeat. (And, of course, these features are what merely religious people are infamous for!) Then, out of our disoriented awareness that we have to somehow discover a better source for our spiritual life-flow because our past religious efforts didn't actually please God, the "pendulum naturally swings" to the other extreme as we finally are forced to relax the religious "muscles" that we have been tensing for so long.

At this point in this divine breaking process, the deepest part of us still longs to please God and avoid sinning, but, we suddenly discover that we don't possess the will-power within us to perform as well on the external moral/spiritual front as we once had. God wounded our spiritual pride (the more deadly sin that had been very active and hiding in our hearts) by setting us up for a strategic "religious failure". (In some of my writings and sermons, I have referred to this as an apparent "divine betrayal barrier" that we each must confront and cross to become the proven spiritual dads and moms that God longs for us to become.) So we end up, as genuine believers, experiencing something very much like the Romans 7 treadmill for a time...or at times. Then, with seasons under our belt marked by two starkly contrasting spiritual dynamics, we progressively realize that neither basic posture is what Jesus truly came to offer us. Then, we are much more ready to consistently enter into and live in the joy and liberation of Romans 8.

Sometimes I really wish coming into spiritual maturity didn't have to be such a long and challenging journey. How 'bout you? But then I think about how I really don't have anything better to do with my allotted years of earthly and, yet imperfect, life than to discover in every season how the Father is slowly conforming me, more and more, into the image of his Son through both blessings and trials...and then trying to learn to cooperate with him more fully.