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1 Corinthians 15:57 Exploring TLB

1 Corinthians 15:57 How we thank God for all of this! It is he who makes us victorious through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:13-25 But how can that be? Didn't the law cause my doom? How than can it be good? No, it was sin, devilish stuff that it is, that used what was good to bring about my condemnation. So you can see how cunning and deadly and damnable it is. For it uses God's good laws for its own evil purposes.

The law is good, then, and the trouble is not there but with me because I am sold into slavery with Sin as my owner.

I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want to--what I hate.

I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking.

But I can't help myself because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger that I am that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't.

When I want to do good, I don't and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.

Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is; sin still has me in its evil grasp.

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

I love to do God's will so far as my new nature is concerned;

but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

In my mind I want to be God's willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin. So you see how it is; my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin.

Oh, what a terrible predicament I'm in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature?

Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.

1 John 5:1-5 If you believe that Jesus is the Christ--that he is God's Son and your Savior--then you are a child of God. And all who love the Father love his children too.

So you can find out how much you love God's children--your brothers and sisters in the Lord--by how much you love and obey God.

Loving God means doing what he tells us to do, and really, that isn't hard at all;

for every child of God can obey him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him.

But who could possibly fight and win this battle except by believing that Jesus is truly the Son of God?