The apostle Paul used a Greek word for “flesh” in these verses. The Common English Bible chose the word “selfishness” to convey what he meant by that. The CEB Study Bible noted that Paul was talking about “the core of the human who opposes God’s Spirit (as in Rom. 7:5, 14).” Left to our natural impulses, he said, our hearts are hostile to God. We need God’s Spirit to do in us what we can’t do for ourselves.

• Scholar N. T. Wright offered a colorful image to help us grasp Paul’s thinking: “Human beings in their natural state, faced with God’s law, are about as much use as a gas lamp plugged into the electric supply.” Paul earlier lamented, “I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do” (Romans 7:19). Have you ever found yourself wondering, “Why did I do that?” What is there in you that pushes back against what God wants from you?
• This reading once again speaks to the mysterious spiritual “chemistry” between God’s part and our part in spiritual growth. The Spirit needs to control our mind—and that happens, in part, because of what we choose to focus our mind on. What is your mind set on? What helps you keep your mind set on what the Spirit desires?