21 So this is the principle I have discovered: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.

23 But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me.

24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

25 Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

— Romans 7:21-25

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

— Romans 8:1-4

Thoughts on Today’s Reading

Grace, mercy and love from Christ to you.

Imagine the freedom of letting go of striving of guilt of the constant need for approval and resting in the knowledge that we are fully loved and fully accepted by God! This is the heart of Paul’s message to the Romans and it’s as relevant today as it was in his time. Paul’s confidence in the gospel wasn’t just intellectual. It was deeply personal! He had seen the gospel‘s power, and he was willing to stake his life on it.

The same gospel that transforms Paul from a persecutor of Christians into an apostle can change us to. It’s a gospel that doesn’t depend on our abilities, but on God‘s power and it’s this very power that Paul declares with unwavering confidence. God‘s power for salvation, brings new life to everyone who believes as we journey through Romans. Paul doesn’t hold back when it comes to one of the hardest truths of the human experience.