But I Want To Do Better
Apologies that this devotion is late today!
"Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Romans 7:25
Have you ever ended a day thinking, I really wanted to do better today?
We genuinely want to please God. We want to be patient when people test us. We want to be kind instead of sharp, generous instead of selfish, encouraging instead of critical. We don't want to gossip, lose our temper, or harbour resentment. Like the apostle Paul, our desire is real.
Yet, if we are honest, we fail far more often than we would like.
Paul describes this painful struggle earlier in Romans 7. He knows what is right. He delights in God's law. He wants to obey. Yet he finds another power at work within him—his sinful nature pulling him away from the very things he longs to do. His cry is one every Christian understands: "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
Then comes the wonderful answer:
"Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Jesus is not simply our example; He is our Saviour.
He lived the perfectly obedient life that we never could. Every word He spoke, every thought He had, every action He took perfectly pleased His Father. Then He willingly went to the cross, where He took upon Himself the guilt of all our failures—every impatient word, every selfish decision, every sinful thought. Through His death, our sins are forgiven. Through His resurrection, we are given new life.
But Jesus does even more. He doesn't merely forgive us and send us on our way to try harder. He gives us His Holy Spirit, who lives within us, changing our hearts and giving us strength to fight against sin. We still struggle, just as Paul did, but we no longer struggle alone or without hope.
Our acceptance with God is not based on how well we performed today. It rests entirely on faith in Christ and what He has already accomplished for us.
Every day we can say with confidence:
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen.