Simply put, the battle, for all heartfelt believers in Jesus’ message from His Father, is between our spirit and our body. No cooperation, dead set against each other. The more our spirit is fed from His message the more we grieve sin. Everyone saved knows this battle and their own failures being overcome by sin. Apostle Paul expressed it this way, “Wretched man that I am!”
“For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person, but I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” (Romans &:21-25 NASB)
It appears many are content believing the next verse and believing no further. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1 NASB)
Jesus does not intend for His Father’s children to continue as wretched men and women. He is the solution, but first we must come to understand and accept the reality that the battle is His. Faith is required that Jesus does more than forgive our sins when we confess them, He will also “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Big struggles and failures continue until we learn that our faith must be in Him rescuing us, and not in our own abilities to overcome.
There is not much worse than feeling wretched, except pretending that sin no longer matters. The Law still has requirements, fulfilled by Jesus who, by the Spirit, enables His Fathers children, “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:4 NASB)
Amazing grace bestowed on those born of God’s Spirit.
His Family Table 