Romans 7:15-25a (NRSV)
Read Romans 7:15-25a on biblegateway.com
Verse 15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Verse 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. Verse 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. Verse 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. Verse 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Verse 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. Verse 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. Verse 22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, Verse 23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Verse 24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Verse 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
Devotion
We revisit this week’s theme considering the pitfalls of freedom. I remember a lector in one of our parishes receiving this Romans text to read on a Sunday morning. The comment after the service was, “And I thought when I read Romans 5:12-19 that was challenge enough,”—Paul’s talk there of sin and God’s free gift, with Adam the culprit and Jesus the conqueror. The lector, given some freedom, might have chosen either not to read that week or to choose another text. So it is with the choices we make because we are free to do so. All the talk here of doing one thing, wanting to do another. Of nothing good dwelling in me. Of being of the flesh and sold in slavery under sin. Wretched person that I am! We know daily how things pull us away from God and how our will is bound. It seems so complicated. But Thanks be to God who frees us in Christ.
Prayer
Make me a captive Lord, and then I shall be free. Imprison me within thine arms, and strong shall be my hand. Amen. (SBH 508)