July 11, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Exodus and Romans? Here’s today’s reading:
Romans 7 (NIV)
Released From the Law, Bound to Christ
1 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him.……Continue Reading
Romans 7
This is the situation we are in when we come to Christ and are saved. We are a new creation in Christ Jesus but we still live in the old fleshly nature. We want to follow the Lord with our spiritual man that we have when saved but we are at war with our flesh. After we are aware of this battle as Paul states even about himself; we need to be bringing our helpless being before Him and surrendering completely before Him. Confessing our sins to Him and walking with Him on a daily basis. I think that God allows this struggle in us so that we will seek Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I think that if God made us perfect; we couldn`t relate to others in sharing Christ and bringing them to the Lord. He wouldn`t be able to use us. But He also leaves us on earth to share Christ with others. He could take us to Heaven when we get saved but wants us to take part in sharing the good news. So until we are taken to be with Him; we are on a mission to tell people about Him. God draws people to Himself and our part is to share the good news. God bless.
25Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Roman’s 7. Thank God for chapter 8
“Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind…” God gives us his Word to mitigate the destructive thoughts that wage war in our minds. It helps to memorize verses so we can fight against it and purify our thinking, making us right with God. This, in turn, fosters peace and contentment within us. For Jesus said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
You are so right, Shelly…memorizing God’s Word for use in times of temptation or despair is absolutely essential for the Christian. The Sword of the Spirit…it is our offensive weapon against the threats, and we must become masters of its use!
Paul really helps us to visualize the battle that happens in our minds each day. Every day is a choice to follow or fall into sin. We can’t assume that once we believe on Christ everything will be hearts and rainbows, we will still always struggle with our flesh and the things that tempt us. It’s learning to depend on Him each day, the good ones and the bad ones. We will all see struggle, we will all experience pain, we will all feel temptation but we must trust God and seek Him first in all things to be able to make the choices pleasing to Him that will bring glory to Him.
Romans 7 Paul talks about the relationship between the law and commandments given by God and human sinfulness. If we are in Christ we are not in the law. Paul describes how he wants to do good but struggles, as we all struggle to not sin, because we all have a sinful nature, but we have the Holy Spirit that gives us the power not to sin or convicts us when we do sin.
We all understand the struggle that Paul alludes to here and are all subject to it as long as we have the sin nature within us. But the key to understanding the passage is found in verse 6, that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code. SO we are free from the law as a system of power and means to be made right before God, but not freed from the standards of the law that are reflected in the New Testament. The standard has no power though, and with only the sin nature available to us, all the standard did was show us how sinful we are. But the Spirt gives us the ability to follow the law although the struggle with sin remains. We are freed from sins power and penalty, but not from its presence. And Jesus is the One who rescues us from ourselves, taking on the penalty that our sins deserved and opening the way for the Spirit’s power in our lives. We will gain the victory over sin as we rely on the Spirit’s power, trust in the standards that the Word gives and reckon ourselves dead to sin…it, like the law, has no power over us.
Romans 7
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!
”But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.“
Romans 7:6 NKJV
Paul explains the battle against the flesh. It is important to note that Romans is a long argument that Paul is making. We died to sin in chapter 6, we died to the law here. There is no battle once you are dead. The husband is dead (the law), so the wife can marry another (Christ). Now we live in the newness of the Spirit.
Romans 7