a split personality

Do you ever feel like you have a split personality? There are times where I am sure I have one. For example, there is this one personality who wants to do all the godly things. This person desires honest spirituality. His sole desire is his Savior, Jesus Christ. To please Him is all this person wants to do out of love and gratitude.

Then...there is this other person or personality, if you wish. This person is the total antithesis of the other. Sin is his only desire. Living as his own God, he does whatever he wants unwilling to change--even when presented with the awesomeness of the grace of our God. The lusts of the flesh control him.

I would like to think that I am the first personality most of the time, unfortunately the old personality, the old man seems to rear his ugly head. Those old sin patterns and habits that I do not desire to go through seem to hold sway. Argh!

Do you see my frustration. I honestly want to please God in all that I do. He has saved me out of the mire, out of the pit and I desire to do what He desires above all else. I am more than willing to sacrifice my desires and dreams for the surpassing greatness of our God. Then, why do I still have this struggle with sin?

The things I do not want to do I suddenly find myself doing them. Oh, to be free from this sinful body. One day, my friends, we will not have this struggle. There will be a day when we will be free from all of our sinful desires. There will be a day when sin will cease to exist for us. Now, we are free from the bondage and curse of sin, but soon, sin will cease to exist for us! Oh, to see Christ face to face and all the sinful patterns and lusts will dissipate within the beautiful and lovely gaze of our Savior and God.

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what 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. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 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.
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.
--St. Paul the Apostle, Epistle to the Roman Church: Chapter 7:14-25

'til Christ is formed in us...

--mike