They (compulsive sinful desires) don’t spring out of thin air to lead us astray. Instead, they appeal to our natural, inborn, God-given needs. The needs themselves are legitimate, but sin uses them against us by offering illegitimate, substitute ways of getting them met–ways God never intended us to use. Sin takes what is good and perverts it.
Overcoming Compulsive Desires by Lester Sumrall
It’s incredible how as much as I want to do good all the time, my body seems to have its own plans and agenda.
When we are still young, testing the waters of what is right and wrong, we get shaped by the environment we live in, the people we spend time with, and the ideologies that we come to meet and learn. But I can remember, even with my childish heart, there was a conviction within me about what I was supposed to do, the right thing.
But as we get older, the accumulated experiences allow us to categorize things, and these categories aren’t always what is right. I am even discovering my own vulnerability and can relate with the Apostle Paul when he said in Romans 7:14-25:
14 We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am a creature of the flesh [worldly, self-reliant—carnal and unspiritual], sold into slavery to sin [and serving under its control]. 15 For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled and bewildered by them]. I do not practice what I want to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate [and yielding to my human nature, my worldliness—my sinful capacity]. 16 Now if I habitually do what I do not want to do, [that means] I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good (morally excellent). 17 So now [if that is the case, then] it is no longer I who do it [the disobedient thing which I despise], but the sin [nature] which lives in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh [my human nature, my worldliness—my sinful capacity]. For the willingness [to do good] is present in me, but the doing of good is not. 19 For the good that I want to do, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want to do, I am no longer the one doing it [that is, it is not me that acts], but the sin [nature] which lives in me. 21 So I find it to be the law [of my inner self], that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully delight in the law of God in my inner self [with my new nature], 23 but I see a different law and rule of action in the members of my body [in its appetites and desires], waging war against the law of my mind and subduing me and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is within my members. 24 Wretched and miserable man that I am! Who will [rescue me and] set me free from this body of death [this corrupt, mortal existence]? 25 Thanks be to God [for my deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh [my human nature, my worldliness, my sinful capacity—I serve] the law of sin.
Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, my sinful nature overrules my soul. Hence, the desire to come to Him daily allows me to reassess what really matters. That in the end, it is the Lord who satisfies our needs. And trusting Him requires us to always choose the legitimate means (the ways that please and bring glory to the Name of the Lord) in meeting our legitimate needs.
jessa 