We step into the tension between spiritual momentum and real-life struggle: even after offering ourselves to God and experiencing that new-start reality in Christ, we still find ourselves weighed down by sinful baggage—whether it’s bitterness, jealousy, selfishness, or those unhelpful words we wish we could take back. We walk through the Apostle Paul’s candid wrestling in Romans 7, where he shows that the law, even though it is holy, only exposes sin rather than removes it. Paul shows us that good intentions alone don’t break its hold, and that the “flesh” (that ingrained, muscle-memory part of us) keeps pulling us back. But Paul doesn’t leave us there—he points us forward to Romans 8 and the power of the Spirit, who not only frees us from condemnation but empowers us to think differently, live differently, and put to death the sinful habits that haunt us.
