Romans 7:18,20 (NLT)

“And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t… But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.”

The unregenerate life is a life of bondage. Any life that is not released into the new life of Christ is in bondage. Any life that seeks to have victory by itself is in bondage. One difficult truth we have refused to accept is this: “nothing good lives in our sinful human nature.” So long as I am still a captive of the sinful nature, I am a captive of sin, and in such a life, sin has dominion and rules without opposition. That’s why human moralism is a failed system because it lacks the ability to overpower the sinful nature that lurks within.

Even when we want to do right, we cannot, because we are in bondage. For a season, we may succeed to fool ourselves that we are actually good by ourselves, but sin soon and surely enough, reminds us that we are his property by making us do what we would normally not want to do. Sin is alive and sin lives within man and sin controls man. This is the root of all our human miseries, that is, the person of sin. I have concluded long ago that I, of myself, can never have victory over sin, hence my glad submission and transfer of loyalty to Christ and His Spirit.

“I refuse to trust in myself because in myself is no good thing. I fear to look away from Christ because sin is waiting for me, to slay me, to enslave me, to return me to bondage. I totally agree with the hymn writer: ‘My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.’”