The Book of Romans is the greatest theological document ever written. In its chapters, you find a description of the universal nature of sin and the indictment of all humanity, the primacy of faith in Christ as the only solution, and the innumerable blessings afforded to the Christian when they believe and become a child of God. You find, along with these foundational theological truths the practical application of those truths both as an individual and as the body of Christ. And couched about halfway through this letter, you find Paul’s very honest admission of his own struggle with sin in chapter 7:

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Rom. 7:15).

Surely anyone who has ever taken seriously the demands of following Jesus can relate to that. It’s the feeling of being torn in two directions; it’s the internal argument that comes on the one hand from the new identity and call to holiness we have in Christ and, on the other hand, the sinful nature that stubbornly clings to life. And as a result, we find ourselves frequently in the mindset of “wanting to want”:

We know what the right thing to do is, but we “want to want” to do the right thing.

But many times we don’t want to do the right thing. We want to do the wrong thing. And it’s only by faith that we actually do the right thing, because by faith, we actually choose to do something we don’t want to do:

• We know we should be generous, but we don’t want to.
• We know we should serve, but we don’t want to.
• We know we should forgive, but we don’t want to.

And so we feel torn. We “want to want.” But, praise God, we won’t always have to want to want.

From the moment we believe in Jesus, God puts us on a journey of transformation. We are, day by day, moment by moment, being formed in the likeness of Christ. We are becoming like Him. And while that progress is painfully slow sometimes, we can look back over the course of our lives in Christ and say along with John Newton:

“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

We – all of us – are still in process. Still growing. Still changing. Still becoming holy. Because God has already made us His children and given us the righteousness of His Son, we are becoming what we have already become. Now typically we think about that transformation in terms of our behavior – we are committing less and less sinful actions and choosing more and more righteous ones. But this transformation goes deeper than that. We aren’t just doing better; we are feeling better. Thinking better. Gloriously, over time…

Jesus is making us WHOLE people.

Whole people, who don’t act one way but think another. Whole people, who don’t choose one thing but desire another. Whole people, who don’t have to “want to want” any more.

This is where we are headed. Toward Christlikeness, yes, but also toward wholeness where there is no more discrepancy between the inside and the outside.