I humbly sit before You,
I give myself to Thee
Please infiltrate my mind and heart
Show clearly what I must see.

Romans 7:14-25 (<<click here to read the passage)

Have you ever heard the term circumlocution? It’s a more technical word for speaking in circles. When looking at this particular passage I’ve thought that that is what the Apostle Paul is doing here. With all the doing and not wanting to do, and the not doing and wanting to, it’s felt that way. But when I looked it up and understood its meaning, that’s for sure not what Paul is doing!

Circumlocution is going round and round in a wordy way without ever getting to the heart of the matter. It’s an evasive style of argument, best employed when we really don’t want to say what’s on our minds.

Paul seems to speak that way, but he never hesitates to say what is on his mind! He is not evasive in the least! If it does seem to come across as if his words keep folding back on themselves, it is only because that’s how it works in our minds and hearts.

We’ve all felt it haven’t we? We want to live lives that are holy and righteous, but sin is around every corner to trip us up. We love when we are living in the center of God’s will! We love it when we can readily stop temptation in its tracks! We love it when we feel the Holy Spirit walking side by side with us all along the way.

But then, we get sloppy. A little thought here, another there, and then they start to gang up on us, and almost before we know what is happening (but we pretty much always know) we’ve fallen smack dab in the middle of the sin we had been trying so hard to not fall into.

We don’t want to, and we do. We do want to, and we don’t. And like Paul we exclaim,

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? v24

And this is where the circling words stop. This is where the answer is given, where any hint of hesitancy is eliminated, where any whiff of evasiveness is eradicated!

Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. v25a 

He is most assuredly the answer but we all still struggle even knowing that the answer is right in front of us! It’s obvious, isn’t it? For even Paul follows up that last proclamation with,

So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. v25b NLT

The answer is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. And when we glance away and fall, we must call out for Him, and in an instant, He is right there to set us aright, and off we go once more with Him forgiven and free to continue our journey forward!

All power to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Jan 17th, 2023, Tues, 12:32 pm