The Struggle Between Flesh and Spirit

I’m really full of sin. Walking down the street, sitting on the subway, I’m constantly trapped by the “lust of the eyes” and “inner adultery.” There are two laws warring in my heart, causing anguish and pain. Lord, I don’t want to be bound. I long to be free. Yet for me, there is no chance of overcoming immorality—not only can’t I overcome it, but it’s also causing me suffering. Lord, only you can help me. I pray your Spirit fills me so I can stay alert, turn back, and be cleansed wholly and completely.

For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: 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 and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks 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.

Romans 7:19-25 (NIV)