It is a glorious day in the life of the Christian when he or she realizes that God’s children are not under the Law, that God does not expect them to do “good works” in the power of the old nature.  When the Christian understands that “there is no condemnation,” then he realizes that the indwelling Spirit pleases God and helps the believer to please Him.  What a glorious salvation we have! “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage!” warns Paul in Gal. 5:1 (NKJV). Wiersbe's expository outlines on the New Testament)

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation - Either for things present or past.  Now he comes to deliverance and liberty.  The apostle here resumes the thread of his discourse, which was interrupted, Romans 7:7. (John Wesley)

This is the true perfection of those that are born again, to confess that they are imperfect. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

The body serving as the seat of the death into which the soul is sunk through the power of sin. (Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, Vincent's Word Studies)

May we be enabled to shake off that lethargy which is so apt to creep upon us!  For this end, a deep practical conviction of our natural depravity and weakness will be found of eminent advantage. (William Wilberforce)

The law of the mind in this place is not to be understood as referring to the mind as it is naturally, and as our mind is from our birth, but of the mind which is renewed by the Spirit of God. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Sensual gratifications and illicit affections have debased our nobler powers, and indisposed our hearts to the discovery of God, and to the consideration of his perfections; to a constant willing submission to his authority, and obedience to his laws. (William Wilberforce)

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. (Tocqueville, Charles Alexis Henri Maurice Clèrel de)

The conclusion: as the law of God exhorts to goodness, so does the law of sin (that is, the corruption in which we are born) force us to wickedness: but the spirit, that is, our mind, in that it is regenerated, coexists with the law of God: but the flesh, that is, the whole natural man, is bondslave to the law of sin.  Therefore, in short, wickedness and death are not of the law, but of sin, which reigns in those that are not regenerated: for they neither wish to do good, neither do they do good, but they wish and do evil: but in those that are regenerated, it strives against the spirit or law of the mind, so that they cannot live at all as well as they want to, or be as free of sin as they want to. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

But sin that dwelleth in me - the principle of sin, which has possessed itself of all my carnal appetites and passions, and thus subjects my reason and domineers over my soul.  Thus I am in perpetual contradiction to myself….This strange self-contradictory propensity led some of the ancient philosophers to imagine that man has two souls, a good and a bad one….(Dr. Adam Clarke)

It is not the Will that leads men astray; but the corrupt Passions which oppose and oppress the will. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

If we remain in our beds of apathetic comfort then we hold our manhood cheap (Shakespeare, Henry V) and in doing so change the most beautiful, the purest, the most divine things into excrements because we fail to recognize that we are the filthy stable that Jesus entered so that we might be reborn!
 

To accomplish this amazing feat of aviation they turned off the engine and propeller anti-ice systems to squeeze out the last available Bernoulli (pound of thrust). About twenty minutes later the grand silence befell them as three of the four engines flamed out (quit running).

A man walks in quiet indifference, doing his own will, without knowledge of God, or consequently any sense of sin or rebellion. (Dr. John Darby)

There is no principle by which the soul can be brought into the light; no principle by which it can be restored to purity: fleshly appetites alone prevail; and the brute runs away with the man. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

 

That natural corruption, which adheres strongly even to those that are regenerated, and is not completely gone. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

How can we journey forth into a new day with a new destination until we first know where we are?

Christians may here find a test of their piety.  The fact of struggling against evil, the desire to be free from it, and to overcome it, the anxiety and grief which it causes, is an evidence that we do not love it, and that there.  fore we are the friends of God.  Perhaps nothing can be a more decisive test of piety than a long-continued and painful struggle against evil passions and desires in every form, and a panting of the soul to be delivered from the power and dominion of sin. (Dr. Albert Barnes)

I once had a the opportunity to view the stereotypical man-woman conversation in progress.  The wife, in exasperation, told her husband, “You never listen to me!”  He replied, “Of course I listen to you, I can repeat back every word you said!”

What if, as a Christian, I spend too much time and energy on my exterior?

The deeds of my life, he says, are not in accordance to my will, rather they are contrary to it.  Therefore by the consent of my will with the law, and repugnancy with the deeds of my life, it plainly appears that the law and a properly controlled will induce us to do one thing, but corruption, which also has its seat in the regenerated, another thing. (Geneva Bible Translations Notes)