Held Captive

Romans 7:14-25

REFLECTION

by Mary Alice McGinnis

Picture in your mind what it might look like to be a prisoner. 

Mentally put yourself in this place. 

What does the prison cell look like? 

Is it dark?  Does the stench overpower you?

Are you hungry? 

Are you suffering? 

Are you lonely and afraid? 

The troubles of this world, the distractions of life, the luring of our wandering hearts can lead us to captivity. We strive to find comfort, peace, and contentment. We seek it in relationships, career advancement, recognition, enjoyment, or merely diversions.  We become people pleasers, bingers, or tyrants. As hard as we try, we cannot escape the behaviors and thoughts that we loathe. We feel the quicksand of our idols pulling us down, making us captive to their will.

This is what Paul describes in today’s reading.  This constant proneness of our sinful hearts to wander from our One and Only God. 

Paul describes it in this heartfelt lament:

“For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”

This is what the power of sin does to us!  The very things we chase after consumes us, carrying us away - hopelessly shackled and powerless as prisoners.  

Then Paul uses this powerful image.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”

In ancient times, tyrants who wished to inflict the ultimate punishment would strap a corpse to a prisoner’s back.  The prisoner’s miserable captivity was intensified by a rotting, putrid, decomposing dead carcass that he had to drag around with him every moment of every day.  I know it isn’t pleasant, but can you picture it? 

Paul longed to be free from the wretched body of sin and death that clung to him.

Notice in these verses how many times Paul used first person pronouns - I and me. He sees how hopeless it is to look within himself for the answers for life, for joy, for living in God’s will and perfection.  Even his desire to do it is not enough. 

In verse 24 there is a shift.  He knows he is not able to rescue himself. He cries out, “Who will rescue me. . .?” Who will rescue me from this hopeless condition of being strapped to this loathsome existence? 

The answer? 

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

PRAYER

Sit with God quietly.  Where are you finding yourself in captivity?  What does your cell look like?  What does this dungeon feel like? 

Clasp your hands tightly.  Can you feel the tight grip of the shackles on your hands and feet?  Allow specific behaviors, attitudes or thoughts to come to mind. See how they are enslaving you. Can you feel the pull of sins deathly weight pulling you down into the depths?

Open your heart, and pour out your confess to God. Lift your hands now and cry out to Him, pleading with Him for the sake of Jesus, to rescue you! 

Slowly open your hands now.  Feel the weight of sins powerful shackles being released.  He says to you, “You have been set free!!”

Raise your arms to heaven in grateful praise with these words:

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”