Do I do what I should do?

This week we're looking at Chapter 3 of Mere Christianity, The Reality of the Law, where C. S. Lewis writes:

The law of gravity tells you what stones do if you drop them; but the Law of Human Nature tells you what human beings ought to do and do not.  In other words, when you are dealing with humans, something else comes in above and beyond the actual facts.  You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave).  In the rest of the universe there need not be anything but the facts.

I can but only
stop
and rest a moment
in the place of gratitude
for grace
seeds freedom
allowing me to be
what nature would not

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

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.  I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 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.  I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  Romans 7:14-21 NLT

By His Spirit alone
alive in me
am I anything
that is good,
holy, loving

Breathe in the joy
of being His.

Stop by Sarah's Living Between the Lines to join today's discussion, where I find her pondering the same passage of scripture.