June 11, 2026
Thursday, June 11
I’m glad to say, Paul doesn’t end his shocking testimony in Romans 7 with verse 19. He goes on to write:
21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Paul has found a way to get unstuck. He learned that religion on its own didn’t work. It only made things worse. So by the time he cried out to God, “O wretched man that I am!” there was no self-righteousness left. He offered no excuses, no justification for his sin. It wasn’t his parents’ fault, or his teachers’. It wasn’t because of the pagan, ultra-liberal Greek culture that had corrupted everything. It was him, only him. So that’s the first step to getting unstuck: Take full responsibility.
Have you done this? I have a suggestion you’re not going to like: Make a full confession of your sin. Maybe that means going to the person you’ve sinned against, or the people you continually hurt, and saying it out loud: “I know that I am hard to live with. I am constantly critical of you, and you deserve better. I lose my temper over tiny things, and treat you badly.”
Maybe it’s standing in front of your Life Group and saying, “Here we are praying for all kinds of health issues, but I have something different. I’m tired of being a gossip, dragging people’s names and reputations through the mud because it makes me feel better about myself. Please pray for me to change.”
At the very least, say it out loud to the Lord. “I don’t care enough about the suffering of others, because I’m too stuck on my own desires.” “I am a lazy person who rarely spends time with you or does any good works.” “I look at images that I know are wrong, that feed the ugliest part of me and degrade the way I think about women.”
I’ve found that writing it down is especially effective. Something about seeing your sin in black and white is powerful. Your tendency will be to try to explain it away, to blame someone else. But taking full responsibility requires you not to make any excuses. So instead of a suggested prayer today, I suggest you name your besetting sins before the Lord. Name them honestly, like a prosecuting attorney would name them in a court of Law. Know that God’s forgiveness is undefeated. But pray that He would change you.
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Conroe
More from Pastor Jeff at his website: jeffbergerwriting.com
