The Conflict Within.

These first paragraphs are written by Charles Spurgeon, 1862.

"About five days after I first found Christ, when my joy had been such that I could have danced for very mirth at the thought that Christ was mine, on a sudden I fell into a sad fit of despondency. 

I will tell you why. When I first believed in Christ, I am not sure that I thought the devil was dead, but certainly I had a kind of notion that he was so mortally wounded he could not disturb me. And then I certainly fancied that the corruption of my nature had received its death blow. I felt persuaded that it would never sprout again. I was going to be perfect—I fully calculated upon it—and lo, I found an intruder I had not reckoned upon, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. 

So I went to that same Primitive Methodist chapel where I first received peace with God, through the simple preaching of the Word. The text happened to be ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’  (Romans 7:24)

‘There,’ I thought ‘that’s a text for me.’ I had got as far as that—in the middle of that very sentiment—when the minister began by saying, ‘Paul was not a believer when he said this.’ Well now I knew I was a believer, and it seemed to me from the context that Paul must have been a believer too. Now I am sure he was."

My husband told me when he first became a Christian he thought he would never sin again - until he grabbed a guy around the throat. He said he realized then that he wasn't perfect and needed God's help. 

Let us not become discouraged by our sinfulness. It keeps us humble and makes us see how much we need God to live a good life. When we fall, pray, pray, pray. The Lord will change us.