Romans 7:15,18-19, 24

Okay, first I barely post at all, now I'm like obsessively posting.

Anyway, I finally read more that like five verses in my bible this morning. I read a whole chapter. I like pretty much anything Paul writes cuz I feel like he and I have a lot in common. Except, he's a guy, he was a disciple, he understood God a little better than I do I think....but besides all that, we're practically the same person. teehee

So, Romans 7:15, 18-19, 24
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
18-19 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

This has been going through my mind for a long while. Particularly verse 24. I couldn't remember where in the bible it was, just that Paul had written it.

My friend Dave and I recently had a pretty intense conversation...like any of our conversations aren't intense. Dave, by the way, is the friend that wanted me to end the relationship with that guy. So, in our conversation he was saying that he was thankful that I seemed to have the hard part down; that I wasn't like the people who say 'thank God I'm not like them!' I admit, sometime I do that, but then I remember how wretched I am. I don't have any gradiose visions of myself and my worth apart from Christ. But, here's the problem with this...

Sometiems I get so caught up in the "wretched 'man' that I am! Who will save me" part that I forget what comes next...verse 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

I was gonna just leave it at the first sentence, but maybe I can bumble my way through figuring out what the next part means. I'm already counted righteous cuz God looks at me through the perfectness of Jesus. In my flesh I'm far from righteous, though. The verses in between the ones I included talk about that since I do what I don't want to do, I agree that the law is good. In my mind, I do know that the law is good and that what I do is wrong according to that law. So, in my mind I serve the law of God (what God says is right and wrong), but in my flesh I serve the law of sin (what my body says is right and wrong).

I have a natural tendency to want to go according to what my body says is right. i.e. what feels good is right and what feels bad is wrong. Unfortunately that tends to get me in a bit of trouble and I'm worse off after I've had my 'fun'.

I dunno. Seemed I was going good for a minute there. This is just a bit of my uneducated interpretation, but maybe I'm just talkin' out of my rear.

dreamer