For I know that in me, that is, in my lower self, nothing good has its home; for while the will to do right is present with me, the power to carry it out is not.
If you then, with all your human frailty, know how to give your children gifts that are good for them, how much more certainly will your Father who is in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!«
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) To sum up then, with my understanding, I –my true self– am in servitude to the Law of God, but with my lower nature I am in servitude to the Law of sin.
For whilst we were under the thraldom of our earthly natures, sinful passions – made sinful by the Law– were always being aroused to action in our bodily faculties that they might yield fruit to death.
For the cravings of the lower nature are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those of the lower nature; because these are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything to which you are inclined.
I do not say that I have already won the race or have already reached perfection. But I am pressing on, striving to lay hold of the prize for which also Christ has laid hold of me.
For there was a time when we also were deficient in understanding, obstinate, deluded, the slaves of various cravings and pleasures, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another.