I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin (Romans 7.21-25)
Apostle Paul understood what I have come to believe is a spiritual[1] truth.[2] A truth, which, although a cosmic reality, is manifested and, thus, knowable, in the corporeality of our human flesh and experience. Nevertheless, a truth that always may not be wholly apparent to us in the concrete and swiftly cascading circumstances of our daily living.
This truth, I state thusly: Life lived in relationship with God is no vaccination[3] or escape from our human sinfulness,[4] but rather is the Light of Love that illumines our darkness.
And when we seek and stand in God’s Love-Light, the sin that is in us casts a shadow, which we, by virtue of beholding ourselves more clearly, can see and, knowing that we are loved, are free without shame or guilt, to admit and to address, to renounce and, by God’s Spirit, to be renewed.
© 2021 PRA
[1] By “spiritual”, I mean that which intersects and connects both mortal and immortal spheres of existence.
[2] By “truth”, I mean that which embraces and embodies not only the way things should be, but also the way things are as God has created them.
[3] Here, I employ a prominent, thus, recognizable image in these ongoing global days of the viral pandemic.
[4] Our human sinfulness – although not intended to be of us as God created us, surely, conspicuously, in the manner of our behavior, is in us – is, I believe, chiefly expressed in our ineradicable self-interest, which oft is selfish.
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
Paul,
I put this quote up on my desk!! “Life lived in relationship with God is no vaccination[3] or escape from our human sinfulness,[4] but rather is the Light of Love that illumines our darkness.” You made me wish that there was a vaccination against sin!! Wouldn’t that solve so many of our problems!!! But as you pointed out, no matter how badly we sin or how often, God still loves us unconditionally! Thank you for this!
Love
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Would it not be so very grand, Loretta, if we had a vaccine against sin. Alas, we do not. And, I think, more to the point, in the same way Jesus continues to call to us, saying, “Follow me,” God continually calls on us to employ our Divinely-granted freewill choose to accept the salvation offered in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Love
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