Read: Romans 7:18-25
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief (Hebrews 3:12).
Unbelief And Carnality
We need unrelenting prayer and continued persistence when we fail to find victory because we have failed to trust God. The need is emphasized by A. Paget Wilkes when he points out that this very unbelief is a part of the carnal mind from which we seek deliverance.
“Unbelief… does not necessarily lie in the will. It is not so much that we are unbelieving, as that in us… there is ‘an evil heart of unbelief.’ It is as St. Paul declares, ‘not I, but sin that dwelleth in me,’… We have to take sides with God and our own regenerate nature against it, recognizing that it is abnormal, an intrusion, a parasite, a disease of the soul that should not and need not be there. When we understand and see this we are halfway to victory.”
Our serious situation is that we seek to be rid of the carnal mind, and we must have faith in order to be free. But the very presence of the carnal mind makes faith well-nigh impossible. If we are caught in this dilemma of the spirit, God will graciously help. We may be compelled to join the distraught father who “cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief”
(Mark 9:24). But if we thus seek for Christian holiness we shall be filled, for the Holy Spirit comes to the sincerely seeking soul.
I would, but Thou must give the power; My heart from every sin release; Bring near, bring near, the joyful hour. And fill me with Thy perfect peace.
— Wesley’ s Hymns