Nothing’s Changed?

I’ve spoken with many people over the years who have gone through “salvation experiences” at their churches, only to feel let down the next day, week, or month after the experience.  “I feel like nothing’s changed,” is the response.  “I thought everything would be different after I got saved.”  Their frustration sounds a lot like the sentiments expressed by the Apostle Paul when he wrote:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Romans 7:15-23 ESV)

This battle is not new.  Everyone faces it.  What we need to remember is that Paul was writing about these struggles outside of the help of God.  Once we come home to the Father through the Son, we receive the Holy Spirit.  Everything changes.  Paul acknowledges that, too, when we keep on reading.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25 ESV)

Jesus delivers us from the battle in our minds.  He doesn’t deliver us by removing us from the battle.  Remember, even the Garden of Eden had a forbidden tree and a shrewd serpent.  Jesus, however, gives us what we need to crush his head, walk away from the tree, and, instead, to eat from the tree of life.

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:3-11 NIV)

How about you?  Do you still think nothing has changed?  Or do you see that the thing that changes is you?