Last night I woke up around 1:30 am and could not sleep. The combination of too much bittersweet chocolate before bed (pms time) and a sore heart put sleep far from me. Much of the difficulty I have in raising my children comes, not so much from them, as it does from me.

Sin is a constant struggle. I often react when I should not. My temper flares and I say and do things that should remain unsaid and undone, and then I am left contemplating the truth that the wrath of man doesn't work the righteousness of God.

Last night when I awoke to these thoughts and an overwhelming sense of my own sinfulness, guilt, and depravity, I turned to Scripture in an effort to find the remedy for my state. Romans 6 was my choice and Matthew Henry was my friend and counsellor as I contemplated these passages. What follows are portions from his commentary on chapter 6 that served to comfort my soul even as I confessed my sin and utter need of Christ and Him alone for my salvation. Perhaps others have these same struggles that I have and will find the remedy for sin and comfort here that I have found. I slept soundly after thanking God for his mercy and provision for such as I.

~ Though sin may remain as an outlaw, though it may oppress as a tyrant, yet let it not reign as a king. Let it not make laws, nor preside in councils, nor command the militia; let it not be uppermost in the soul, so that we should obey it. Though we may be sometimes overtaken and overcome by it, yet let us never be obedient to it in the lusts thereof; let not sinful lusts be a law to you, to which you would yield a consenting obedience... Sin lies very much in the gratifying of the body, and humoring that...because it is a mortal body, and hastening apace to dust, therefore let not sin reign in it. It was sin that made our bodies mortal, and therefore do not yield obedience to such an enemy.

~Unrighteousness is unto sin; the sinful acts confirm and strengthen the sinful habits; one sin begets another; it is like the letting forth of water, therefore leave it before it be meddled with... As every sinful act confirms the sinful habit, and makes the nature more and more prone to sin (hence the members of a natural man are heare said to be servants of iniquity unto iniquity -- one sin makes the heart more disposed for another), so every gracious act confirms the gracious habit: serving righteousness is unto holiness; one duty fits us for another; and the more we do the more we may do for God. Our serving righteousness... an evidence of sanctification.

~ There is such an antipathy in our hearts by nature to holiness that it is no easy matter to bring them to submit to it: it is the Spirit's work, who persuades by such inducements as these set home upon the soul.

~The death of the cross was a slow death; the body, after it was nailed to the cross, gave many a throe and many a struggle: but it was a sure death, long in expiring, but expired at last; such is the mortification of sin in believers. [What comfort! - CG]

~Thus must we rise [from the grave of sin - CG] to live to God: this is what he calls newness of life (v.4), to live from other principles, by other rules, with other aims, than we have done. A life devoted to God is a new life; before, self was the chief and highest end, but now God. To live indeed is to live to God, with our eyes ever towards him, making him the centre of all our actions.

~It might be objected that we cannot conquer and subdue sin, it is unavoidably too hard for us: "No" says he, "you wrestle with an enemy that may be dealt with and subdued, if you will but keep your ground and stand to your arms; it is an enemy that is already foiled and baffled; there is strength laid up in the covenant of grace for your assistance if you will but use it. "Sin shall not have dominion." God's promises to us are more poweful and effectual for the mortifying of sin than our promises to God. Sin may struggle in a believer, and may create him a great deal of trouble, but it shall not have dominion; it may vex him, but shall not rule over him.

~[We are] not under the covenant of works, which requires brick, and gives no straw, which condemns upon the least failure, which runs thus, "Do this and live; do not do it and die;" but under the covenant of grace, which accepts sincerity as our gospel perfection, which requires nothing but what it promises strength to perform, which is herein well ordered, that every transgression in the covenant does not put us out of the covenant, and especially that it does not leave our salvation in our own keeping, but lays it up in the hands of the Mediator, who undertakes for us that sin shall not have dominion over us, who hath himself condemned it, and will destroy it; so that, if we pursue the victory, we shall come off more than conquerors.

~This is a very comfortable word to all true believers. If we were under the law, we were undone, for the law curses every one that continues not in every thing; but we are under grace, grace which accepts the willing mind, which is not extreme to mark what we do amiss, which leaves room for repentance, which promises pardon upon repentance; and what can be to an ingenuous mind a stronger motive than this to have nothing to do with sin? Shall we sin against so much goodness, abuse such love?... What can be more black and ill-natured than from a friend's extraordinary expressions of kindness and good-will to take occasion to affront and offend him? To spurn at such bowels, to spit in the face of such love, is that which, between man and man, all the world would cry out shame on.

~ We have need to be often reminded of our former state.

~... a freedom from righteousness is the worst kind of slavery.

~ Sinners merit hell, but saints do not merit heaven. There is no proportion between the glory of heaven and our obedience; we must thank God, and not ourselves, if ever we get to heaven. And this gift is through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is Christ that purchased it, prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the Alpha and Omega, All in all in our salvation.

Therein lies my hope.