I am hopelessly flawed. I want to be good and have good motives, but I find my heart to be full of selfish motives, unloving and unkind. I try not to act on these ugly inner thoughts, for I want to be good. I try to put on the good. People think of me as good. Alas, I am not. I am hopelessly flawed. I sometimes get depressed over this lack of good in me. I want to be nice to people. I want to treat them like a good Christian should. I want God to like me.

Do you identify with this inner conflict? The Apostle Paul did. In Romans chapter 7 he expresses this same inner conflict.

21. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23. But 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. 24. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25. Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Thank you Father for your word, and thank you Paul for expressing this inner conflict so I know that I’m not alone. Once again I am reminded that it is my FAITH that pleases God, not my puny attempts to make myself good. In Jesus he fixed the problem that I can’t fix. Yes, I am indeed flawed, but not hopelessly as I sometimes get lured into thinking. There is hope not in what I can do, but in what he has done. So, I take comfort in these words: “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Amen!