State of Man - Hopeless and Hopeful

Romans 7:14-15 (ESV) ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

As I sit down writing this today, I am a man changed. God has instilled a new reality upon me. One that has overwhelmed me with His pure and unbridled goodness. This is a very recent change as well might I add…

Here is the reality. Each and every person who draws breath on this earth is in a fallen nature. Have you ever had one of those events in your life where you keep trying to do something over and over and over, only to fail each and every time? You look up new tricks on YouTube, or read dozens of books, or reach out to wise people to gain their wisdom and insight…only to try again and crash and burn yet again? That is so frustrating isn’t it?!

How many of us have been banging our heads on the wall in frustration…both proverbially and literally…as we try to break this chain? I can safely say that I was one of them. So, it begs the question…why even try?

Look at the scripture for today. Paul is speaking to the church in Rome on this very battle he himself has with sin in his own life. He keeps trying over and over. He does not do the thing that would honor God…he does what honors his flesh. And it fails. And he ends up doing something he hates!

When you study this whole chapter you see a repeat theme. You see recounted time and time again the actions of man fail, weighed down by their sin. People who strive in earnest. Who throw themselves and everything within them at the problem. They want a solution. Yet, this is hopeless. Such is the state of man.

Yet, what if there was an answer to this impossible dilemma? Spoiler alert…His name is Jesus…and He is the solution we have all been searching for. I myself have been in a constant years long state of repentance on a struggle and battle I have failed to break. I have read more theology books, said more prayers, gone to more wise people, and tried more new tricks than any of us could imagine. Yet I failed time and time and time and time again.

Why? The same reason that this whole chapter of Romans, and most of the whole book of Romans, exists. When you put man at the center of the solution, you’ve already failed. When you put YOUR effort at the center of the solution…you will get nowhere. When you put the wisdom of man at the center of the solution…you will end up returning void.

There is a hope that silences the hopelessness. When we stop doing things man’s way, and submit before Christ and allow Him to do things HIS way in our lives…chains are broken. Weights are lifted. Relationships heal, damage is repaired, ruin is restored…and Christ is the mortar that holds it all together.

Sit back, be at peace, submit yourself to God in your situations, in your struggles, in your battles, in your repentance. Stop relying on the things of other men and women! They’re just as fallen as you are! Stop turning to broken things for a solution.

Turn to the restorer for the solution. Be at peace and be freed from the shackles of your sin. Follow the promptings and direction He lays upon your heart…. Christian, be healed.

Soli Deo Gloria!!!!