Looking Back on a Wretched Life

The Jews agreed with the Mosaic Law in their mind and wanted to keep it. However, conflict existed in the life of the Jew who had a desire to obey the Law but failed to do so when the flesh overruled the mind. Sin controlled the flesh and asserted its authority over what the mind wanted to do. The Law provided no power to break the control indwelling sin has as it rules over the body.

The unbeliever has varying degrees of sensing the dominance of sin and in struggling against it. They have a desire to please God for various reasons, but no power to carry it out. As a result, even having the desires there is no righteous, God-pleasing actions.

Therein lays the principle that only the believer will have both the desire and the pure heart to acceptably do the will of God. It is all futility to try and please God by doing good works while still in the flesh. Repeated failures point to the fact that, that is the pattern of an unbeliever struggling with sin, not a believer. The believer does not live controlled by sin, but by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.