You Can Do It!

ROM 7:14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

There is a total contrast between "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" and "the law of sin and death." It is as far as east is from west or light from darkness. We cannot serve both. We cannot travel east and west at the same time. We cannot serve God and mammon. We cannot represent the character of God and Satan at the same time. But there’s the rub.....we are so used to being the way we were. Let me show you something...Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

The passage shows how difficult it is for anyone to liberate himself from the innate tendency to sin. There’s this story....A scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, once asked a turtle to carry him across a river on his back. "Are you mad?" exclaimed the turtle. You’ll sting me while I’m swimming and I’ll drown." The scorpion laughed as he replied, "My dear turtle, if I were to sting you, you would drown and I would go down with you. Now, what would be the point of that? I won’t sting you. It would mean my own death!"

The turtle thought about the logic of the scorpion’s argument for a moment, then said, "You’re right. Hop on!" The scorpion

climbed aboard and halfway across the river, he gave the turtle a mighty sting. As the turtle began to sink to the bottom of the river with the scorpion on its back, it moaned in dismay, "After your promise, you still stung me! Why did you do that? Now we’re both doomed!" The drowning scorpion sadly replied, "I couldn’t help it. It’s my nature to sting." [God’s Little Devotional Bible]

Now, you may not be able to change your skin color (or spots), and you may have a nature that is hard to overcome and to change, but we need to remember that ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THRU CHRIST JESUS! MARK 10:27Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." That’s what we’re gonna talk about today..your IN-ability to change your life, and God’s ABILITY to transform you to His will for your life.

The problem with sin is simple.....it becomes a habit too easily. Once we develop a habit or "custom" it’s hard to break. We can talk about cigarettes. Tha’s a hard habit to break! But what I want to bring to your attention is some of those other habits you may have. You see, when we do something often enough (even sin), we begin to rationalize it and even sometimes minumize it in our lives. In other words, we can become accepting and tolerant of sin in our lives without even realizing what’s happening.

You will NOT be able to change yourself anymore than you were able to keep those New Years resolutions that you made back in Jan. How’s that going for you? In the same way, we often try to change by making resolutions to do what we know to be right with God. But change doesn’t happen overnight, and we don’t have the power to do it alone. Taking action is a good thing to do, but