Day #2373

June 30, 2020 

Tuesday’s Thoughts on Scripture for today comes from Romans 7:20: Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (NRSV)

I just won’t eat it. I don’t care if it’s sitting right in front of me, taunting me. I am strong and have enough willpower to avoid putting it in my mouth. It’s not good for me. It’s full of fat and sugar and NOT on my diet. It’s purely sinful to even look at it. I’ll just walk away.

But even from the other room, it calls to me. Soon it becomes all I can seem to think about. How good it would be. I mean, how much harm can just one donut do?!?!

It’s not what I want to do, but I do it anyway. Gobble it down. And feel horrible afterward. Where is that willpower I thought I had?!?! What brings me to do what I don't want to do? Paul calls it the sin that dwells in me - that desire to have what I want when I want to have it. After all, sin says it's all about me.

Now eating a donut is certainly not the most sinful thing I could do. But isn’t it a good example of how I cannot just will myself not to do what I don’t want?! So Paul then writes in Romans 7:24b-25a: Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (NRSV)

God, through Jesus Christ is our rescuer from ourselves. And grace is the life raft. Yes, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. Amen!

Blessings. And prayers.