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Text: Romans 7.14-25

It’s tempting to think if Peter could do it all over again, he’d probably make a different choice. We’d like to think, based on 20-20 hindsight, he’d recognize the enormous consequences of his choice and, instead, make another. But Scripture teaches that’s probably not the case.

Peter’s contemporary, the Apostle Paul, addressed the issue in Romans 7 where he wrote, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Romans 7.18b-19). His predicament is ours as well—we know what’s wrong, but we do it anyway.

This is where God’s love makes all the difference. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7.25). Because of God’s great mercy demonstrated through the sacrifice of Jesus, we are his beloved children, no matter what we’ve done.

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Today, as you remember an especially bad choice (either from the past or recently), confess it to God and accept his forgiveness.