Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean that all our struggles are over. Yes, it’s wonderful to have peace with God (Romans 5:1), and to know that Christ loved us enough to die even for sinners like us (Romans 5:8). The gospel is indeed good news in all sorts of ways.

But let’s face it – as long as we remain in this world, our old habits and bodily desires will pull us in directions we know good and well God doesn’t want us to go. That’s because while salvation is instantaneous, becoming like Christ is a gradual process. When we surrender to God, we are instantly declared righteous in His sight (Romans 5:1), and the perfect obedience and holiness of Christ is instantly credited to our account (Romans 5:19). But it takes a lifetime of Spirit-enabled effort to make that holiness a reality. It takes time and energy to live into the righteousness which God has already declared us to have.

And that’s because sin isn’t just a list of things we should do or leave undone. Those actions are merely symptomatic of a deeper, spiritual disease. Sin is, at root, an inclination of the heart toward the self and away from God. And when we come to Christ, when we surrender to Him, He breaks the power of our old sinful nature (Romans 6:6-7), but does not root it completely out of our lives. No, He leaves us to wrestle with it, allowing us in this way to participate in the process of our sanctification.

Paul illustrates this truth in Romans 7, as he describes his ongoing struggles with the remnants of sin within himself. He knows the right thing to do, and he wants to do it, but sometimes he gives in to what he calls his fleshly desires (7:19, 21-23). Sometimes, in spite of his best efforts, he ends up doing things that he hates (7:15). Such a struggle was tough for him, and maybe it’s just as tough for you today.

But here’s the good news – the fight against sin is a sign of spiritual health, not weakness. For if you aren’t making the effort to swim upstream against the current of sin in the culture around you and the pull of your old desires and habits within you, then by definition you are coasting downstream, drifting further away from God and His perfect will for you.

So, consider yourself to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:11). Ask God to help you, and then get busy putting to death whatever sin you find within your heart. Stand up to the wickedness you find in the world around you. And rejoice that you are on the same battlefield with Christ, fighting the same enemy He fought to the death to prove His great love for you.

Romans 7:14-25 (NASB)

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
15 For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
16 But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good.
17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19 For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.
20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.
22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25 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.