Daily DevotionalsReading: “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”—Romans 7:25

Christian, is this your language? Have you learnt with Paul, with Job, with Isaiah, and all the faithful gone before, to loathe yourself in your own sight? Do you groan, the burden of a body of sin which drags down the soul? This is human nature. In the first place, think what humbling thoughts such a state of corruption ought to induce. Though the mind be regenerated, though with the mind the believer serves the law of God, delights in the law of God, loves the law, and would make it all subject of devout meditation all the day; yet such is the body of sin, the flesh with its affections, and appetites, and desires, that it draws away the attention, imperiously puts in its claims, and rises up in rebellion continually. And are the souls of God’s children thus exercised, thus afflicted, in the struggles between the different motions of grace and corruption from day to day? Yes, such is the state, such the uniform experience of God’s people in all ages.

Paul thus complains, though he had been so highly sanctified. Converted in such remarkable circumstances, called personally to service by the Lord Jesus, caught up to the third heaven, and laboring more than all the apostles. But yet this blessed apostle, who was continually flying on the wings of zeal and love in the service of his Master, even he, with his flesh, he tells us, served the law of sin. Do you discover the same in your experience, Christian? Do you feel the rebellions of sin rising up in you, and detect your heart, wandering even in the moment of solemn devotions? Oh then, what humbling views ought you to have of yourself, and to lay low in the dust before God.

When you have duly contemplated this state of fallen nature, let your next improvement of this subject be to fly to Jesus, to take refuge in Him and His great salvation; say as Paul did, ”Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 

Taken from The Poor Man’s Evening and Morning Portions by Rev. Robert Hawker, Works, Vol. 8; 1830. Edited by Aaron Dunlop for thinkgospel.com ©2013.