Some days I am a walking contradiction. Not a hypocrite in its true definition. I do not pretend to believe something, nor do I feign belief in something so as to maintain a public appearance of who I am, only to have my actions betray me and undermine my testimony. I am not an actor, as a true "hypocrite" is. No. My belief is sincere, but I admit that in and of myself I am incapable of attaining the standards that I strive for. This perfection I seek eludes me day by day by day. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. No, I do not pretend. I struggle. Does that mean that I ought to discard the goal just because I cannot reach it today? No. Just because I cannot reach it today does not mean I am no closer to reaching it than I was the day I started this journey. In fact, it is this reaching for the unattainable that has drawn me up. So I strive on. 12) Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13) Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14) I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Am I perfect? No. Am I dead? No. Then I'm not done yet. And I ask that you would forgive me as well, when my words and my actions don't match. For just like you, I lean on the grace and love of God through the hope I have in Jesus Christ. For it is through Him that I will one day reach this goal for which I strive... | 
