Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

²¹  I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

²²  For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

²³  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.

²⁴  Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from the body of this death?

²⁵ 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, with my flesh the law of sin.”  Romans 7:14-25.

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Today’s Scripture focuses on our sinful flesh and the resulting misery.  “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.”  “Wretched man that I am!”

Yesterday’s Scripture focused on the Law and how our sinful passions are aroused by the Law.

Putting them together is deadly.  “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.”  Romans 7:5.  “But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind;  for apart from the Law sin is dead.  I was once alive apart from the Law;  but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;  and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;  for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.”  Romans 7:8-11.

But, there is hope!

“… Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  …”  Romans 7:24-25.

“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 8:3-4.  “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”  Romans 7:6.