The email sounded like many others we get. At its heart was a statement most of us can identify with, going something like this: "Chaplain," the carpenter said, "it's like I can't help myself sometimes. The very things I wish I would stop doing are the things I keep doing, and the things I wish I would do-and that I know God wants me to do-are the very things I can't seem to get to or to do."

Sound familiar?

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin...'" John 8:32-34

      The email sounded like many others we get. At its heart was a statement most of us can identify with, going something like this: "Chaplain," the carpenter said, "it's like I can't help myself sometimes. The very things I wish I would stop doing are the things I keep doing, and the things I wish I would do-and that I know God wants me to do-are the very things I can't seem to get to or to do."

      Sound familiar? That's because the Apostle Paul used almost the same words in Romans, chapter 7.

      Nearly every Christian wrestles with a sin that tempts them again and again. Some find themselves trapped in that sin, while others have a good days/bad days relationship with their besetting sin. Whether it's sexual temptations like pornography and lust; behavior temptations like envy, greed and anger; or character sins like hardheartedness and legalism, we often get to the point where we throw up our hands and say what that carpenter said in his email: "The things I want to do I don't, and the things I don't want to do I keep doing."

      Most of us think if we just try harder, we'll be able to beat these things. When we discover that plan almost never works, we're at a loss. At this point, far too many of us surrender. We then construct prisons of (false) guilt and sentence ourselves to believing we've failed God.

      But how should we react? The formula, in fact, may surprise you: Not harder, but closer.

      Instead of trying harder to be holy, what God wants us to do is draw closer to Him. He will finish the work of redemption in us! It's not possible for us to do so. The closer our relationship with Him, the more dramatic the changes we'll see---and others will see---in our lives.

      That's why Christians should never read Romans 7 without also reading Romans 8! If we stop at chapter 7, we run the risk of thinking Paul is still a slave to sin. If we believe the Apostle Paul couldn't break free, we're likely to wonder what chance we have. So it's imperative we read Romans 8 with Romans 7. Romans 8 immediately tells us we're no longer slaves to sin. In one of the most exciting chapters in Scripture, the Holy Spirit works through Paul's quill to demonstrate why we're free from sin itself, and why we can and should be free from the self-imposed prisons of false guilt.

      In other words, when we focus our time and effort on trying harder to be good, we take our eyes off Jesus and lose our sense of place. We then start doing what feels right instead of letting the Holy Spirit lead us to what is right.

      And here's the news that repeatedly surprises Christians: When we get to heaven, there are no sins waiting to haunt us, even if we are still in the process of learning how to be freed from the slavery to sin when our earthly time ends. That's because when Jesus died for our sins, He died for every one of them, repetitive and otherwise, and God promises that He will "move our sins as far as the East is from the West, and "He will remember them no more!" So not only are we no longer slaves to sin, but we're also no longer threatened with the judgment of those sins. (However, we do still sometimes suffer earthly consequences of them on this side of heaven.)

      Paul understood some Christians will never feel forgiven (or forgive themselves) until they get to heaven and hear it from God directly. That's part of why he makes sure we know that once we've accepted Jesus, there's nothing, not even "anything else in all of creation" (like us with our guilty consciences and feelings of helpless hopelessness) "can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." To drive this point home, he closes with the following line, which could be the life verse for every follower of Jesus:

...in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Conquerors, not prisoners.

      Can we get an amen?!?

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