Some days it feels like there are two “you’s” living in one body. One truly longs to obey God, to think pure thoughts, to speak life, to walk in holiness. The other seems ready to cave at the smallest temptation, pulled toward sin like metal to a magnet. Romans 7:25 captures this tension so honestly: a mind that wants to serve God, and a flesh that still gravitates toward sin—yet all wrapped in a shout of thanks to God through Jesus Christ. This is not a verse of despair; it is a declaration that the struggle is real, and the Savior is greater.

Honest About the War Within

Paul does not pretend that once we are saved, the old desires vanish. He writes, “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 7:25). That’s the apostle Paul talking—the man who saw the risen Christ—admitting that there is a real war still raging inside. This means your battle is not a sign that you are a fake Christian; it is evidence that there is now a new heart at odds with the old nature. Dead people do not fight; living ones do.

Scripture describes this inner conflict elsewhere: “For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17). The flesh is not merely your body; it is your old sinful nature that does not submit to God. The Spirit is the very presence of God in you, producing new desires. Both are active. Knowing this helps you stop being shocked by the struggle and start being honest about it before the Lord, bringing every failure, every temptation, every weakness into the light of His Word and His grace.

Thank God for the Decisive Victory

Notice where Paul starts: “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). Before he resolves how to live with this tension, he anchors his heart in worship. The victory over sin’s penalty and ultimate power does not lie in a stronger will, tighter self-discipline, or better habits. It lies entirely in a Person. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:57). The victory is not a prize you earn; it is a gift you receive in union with Christ.

Because of this, your standing before God is not tied to how well you’re winning today’s skirmish. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The same Paul who groans over indwelling sin in chapter 7 rejoices in this rock-solid verdict in chapter 8. Christ has taken your guilt, broken sin’s legal claim over you, and given you His righteousness. The war continues, but the outcome is decided. You fight as one who is already accepted, not as one trying to earn acceptance.

Learning to Serve God With a Renewed Mind

Paul says, “with my mind I serve the law of God” (Romans 7:25). In Christ, you have a new allegiance in the deepest part of you. Your flesh may clamor for old habits, but your renewed mind now agrees with God. So Paul later urges, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). Transformation begins where the battle is fiercest: in what you believe, love, and meditate on.

This means you do not passively endure the war; you actively train your mind and heart. “Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:1–2). Practically, that looks like saturating yourself with Scripture, fleeing what feeds the flesh, walking in the Spirit through daily dependence and prayer, and choosing obedience even when your feelings lag behind. The grace that saved you also trains you: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:11–12). Grace both forgives your failures and fuels your fight.

Lord Jesus, thank You that in the middle of my inner war, You have already won the decisive victory. Today, help me think Your thoughts, love what You love, and take the next obedient step by the power of Your Spirit.

Satan's distracting words often come from the most unexpected quarters. Martha would call Mary away from sitting at the feet of the Master. Sometimes, if we are not careful, our best friend may distract us. Or it might be some very legitimate activity. This day's bustle and hurly-burly would too often and too soon call us away from Jesus' feet. These distractions must be immediately dismissed, or we shall know only the "barrenness of busyness."

The multiplying agencies and the extraneous activities of much of the current gospel "programming" may distract us if we are not wary and lead us into some meandering by-path that comes to a dead end. Our genius is preserved by sticking at the task of worldwide evangelization that God has called us to by the tried and proven methods that God has blessed, thereby avoiding the slough of an effete denominationalism on the one hand and unproductive, fevered activity on the other.

In a world like ours, we need to master the art and keep at the business of dismissing distractions.

Whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. - Proverbs 1:33

The God whom men know, or think they know, outside of the revelation of Divinity in Jesus Christ, is a God before whom they sometimes tremble, who is far more often their terror than their love, who is their "ghastliest doubt" still more frequently than He is their dearest faith. But the God that is in Christ wooes and wins men to Him, and from His great sweetness there streams out, as it were, a magnetic influence that draws hearts to Him. He has made "the rough places plain and the crooked things straight "; leveled the mountains and raised the valleys, and cast up across all the wilderness of the world a highway along which "the wayfaring man, though a fool," may travel. Narrow understandings may know, and selfish hearts may love, and low-pitched confessions may reach the ear of, the God who comes near to us in Christ, that we in Christ may come near to Him. The breaker is gone up before us. " Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest of all ... by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, . . . let us draw near with true hearts."

One of the blessings that come to the dweller in God’s house, and not a small one, is that, by the power of this one satisfied longing, driven like an iron rod through all the tortuosities of my life, there will come into it a unity which otherwise few lives are ever able to attain, and the want of which is no small cause of the misery that is great upon men. Most of us seem, to our own consciousness, to live amidst endless distractions all our days, and our lives to be a heap of links parted from each other rather than a chain. But if we have that one constant thought with us, and if we are, through all the variety of occupations, true to the one purpose of serving and keeping near God, then we have a charm against the frittering away of our lives in distractions, and the misery of multiplicity, and we enter into the blessedness of unity and singleness of purpose; and our lives become, like the starry heavens in all the variety of their motions, obedient to one impulse. For unity in a life does not depend upon the monotony of its tasks, but upon the simplicity of the motive which impels to all varieties of work. So it is possible for a man harassed by multitudinous avocations, and drawn hither and thither by sometimes apparently conflicting and always bewildering, rapidly-following duties, to say, "This one thing I do," if all his doings are equally acts of obedience to God.