How to Make Doing Right Easier than Doing Wrong

Recently, I read the following in a Bible study guide:

Every parent knows that their children learn by example, don’t they? How many parents have fretted over seeing their children follow their bad traits instead of their good ones? Whatever our age, we find it easier to do wrong than to do right. It’s just part of what it means to be fallen beings. “For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Rom. 7:15, NKJV). Who can’t relate? (emphasis mine).[1]

What do you think of the idea that, whatever our age, it is easier to do wrong than to do right?

Is this an absolute truth, a situational truth, or an untruth? If it contains truth, when is it true?

Does this idea undermine victory in Jesus? Does it fit with the belief about sanctification, maturing in Christ, and overcoming sin?

Is it the same as saying that throughout life, we will continue to struggle with temptation?

Have you experienced any victories over sin in your life, areas in life that through God’s grace you have overcome and experienced a new motivation—so that today, it would be more painful, more distressing, to you to reengage that behavior than it was in the past? In other words, are there certain areas in your life where it is easier to obey than not to?

A simple example: For small children, it is easier for them to disobey the rule to brush their teeth than to obey it. They need constant reminders and oversight to obey. But what is actually easier for you today? What would be harder for you to live out and do: keep brushing your teeth every day—or stop brushing them? Why?

Is there a lesson in this practical, everyday example that applies to Christian maturity? Let’s go back to the statement: “Whatever our age, we find it easier to do wrong than to do right.” Is this an absolute truth, a situational truth, or an untruth?

The study guide quoted, “For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Romans 7:15 NKJV).

What do we understand this to mean? Is the message of the Bible one of defeat, that no matter what good you want to do after you come to Christ, you won’t be able to do it? Or is this passage describing the struggle to replace old, unhealthy habits with healthier ones, which can occur only in the hearts and minds of those who are being faithful? In other words, it is only those who are obeying who ever face this struggle with old behaviors.

Conversion and Spiritual Growth

My view is that conversion is the experience of being reborn with a new Spirit, the Spirit of love and trust, the Spirit of Christ, which brings into the heart new desires, new motives, new priorities. That is when the journey of spiritual maturity actually begins.

The converted individual now desires to live out God’s methods, and begins to choose to apply them; however, despite being motivated by a new spirit to love and trust, that individuality is still operating upon the platform of a brain that, prior to being reborn with the Spirit of Christ, had habituated certain patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting, and these wired-in patterns (habits) established prior to conversion emerge reflexively and spontaneously when not actively thinking about it, and Paul is describing this frustrating struggle in Romans 7:15.

An example of this process is, after you hear about studies on brain health in which changing the hand with which people brushed their teeth resulted in the brain making new pathways, turned on protective proteins, and reduced the risk of dementia, you decide, based on your conviction of this truth, to change the hand with which you have been brushing your teeth.

What is likely to happen that first evening when, as you’re talking with your spouse or listening to a podcast, you go to brush your teeth? You will most likely, absentmindedly, brush with the same hand you always use. And then a few minutes later, as you get into bed, you think, “Oh! I was supposed to brush with my other hand!” Do you then think, “I am a loser. I can’t change. I am beyond hope. Why do I try? I will always be stuck doing it the way I always have”?

Or do you know that because you were not thinking about it, you simply would do what you had previously wired into your brain? And if you want to unwire the old habit and wire in the new, what will you have to do? Get up and brush your teeth again with the opposite hand. And this “stumbling” with the old behavior will recur for many days. At first, you will be in the middle of brushing with the usual hand when you remember and change midway; then, after a few days, you will just be picking up the toothbrush with the usual hand when you remember and change hands—and so on, until you finally wire in the new and stop using the old pathways, which slowly degrades.

Now, through this entire time of change, of stumbling, of “failure,” have you ever been in rebellion? No! Your heart was still committed to doing the new thing, but you were not yet capable of doing it automatically and consistently. It simply wasn’t wired in yet; it required purposeful thought to initiate the new and avoid the old pathway.

This is true whether the habit is teeth brushing or emotional responses, negative thought patterns, speech patterns, or behavioral responses. But after you are converted with a new heart, as soon as you recognize the old pattern, your new heart says, “Oh, that is not what I intended to do.” And you immediately go about doing it the new way, seeking God’s grace, presence, forgiveness if necessary, and power to succeed. However, such a person is not in rebellion against God, and that is why Paul, a few chapters later in Romans 14, states,

Everything that does not come from faith is sin (v. 23 NIV84).

And it is why the Bible states,

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7 NIV84).

The “outward appearance” here refers to more than just physical appearance; it includes what humans can see—the deeds, the behaviors, how well someone behaves, how well one performs a task. While God sees those same deeds, His focus is upon the heart motive, the true desire and intention of the heart, not the momentary lapses in behavior that occur after rebirth from old habits not yet removed. Those are residual symptoms of the damage of sinful living that God wants you to recognize and be unhappy about so that you will continue to choose to activate the new pathways and stop activating the old.

But most certainly, God does not want you to buy into the lie that your stumbling over a habit means there is no victory, that you will continue to live in sin, which is distrust and rebellion, and do not mature or grow.

Maturing By Design, Not Legalism

The penal/legal view focuses on the externals, the outward appearance, the deeds and behavior. God is our Creator, and He focuses upon the design law reality of what salvation actually is—on the heart, the motive, the animating spirit that drives the action. Are we living in love and trust, and are we faithful in our healing journey when we fall short? Do we grieve and run to Jesus when we do, longing for and experiencing further development and maturing?

I can tell you that in my life, this is how it works. I have had certain wired-in ways of seeing, thinking, feeling, and reacting that have fired without my conscious intention in certain situations, and though my heart is more tender in general as I have experienced God’s work in me, my communications still sometimes fall short of Christlikeness. And I grieve! When that happens, I have learned to say, “O what a wretched man am I who will save me from this weak biology that has these old patterns wired in?” And I go to Jesus, and I experience His grace, and over time, He has worked in me so that my brain is rewiring and change is happening, and new automatic responses are developing, and it is easier to do the right and harder to do the wrong.

And because this understanding of how reality works in harmony with God’s design laws, this is how I paraphrased this section of Romans 7:

I am frustrated with what I do! For having been restored to trust, I want to do what is in harmony with God and his methods and principles; but I find that even though I trust God, my old habits, conditioned responses, preconceived ideas and other remnants of the devastation caused by distrust and selfishness are not yet fully removed. And if I find an old habit causing me to behave in ways that I now find detestable, I affirm that the law is a very helpful tool revealing residual damage in need of healing. What is happening is this: I have come to trust God, and I desire to do his will, but old habits and conditioned responses — which present almost reflexively in certain situations — have not yet been totally eliminated and thus cause me to do things I do not want to do. I know that my mind was completely infected with distrust, fear and selfishness, which totally perverted all my desires and faculties, so that even when distrust has been eradicated and trust has been restored, the damage caused by years of distrustful and selfish behavior has not yet been fully healed. So, I find that at times, I have the desire to do what is right, but do not yet have the ability to carry out the desire. For the old habits and conditioned responses are not the good I want to do: No! They are remnants of my selfish, unconverted mind. So, if I find myself doing what I no longer desire to do, it is not myself that acts, but the vestiges of old habits and conditioned responses that have yet to be removed. And through God’s grace, they will soon be removed.

So I find this reality at work: When I want to do good, my old selfish habits and residual feelings of fear are right there with me. In my mind, I rejoice in God’s methods and principles, but I recognize that I remain damaged from years of being infected with distrust and practicing Satan’s methods, so that even though the infection of distrust has been removed, the old habits of fear and self-promotion tempt me from within. What a damaged and corrupt man I am! Who will deliver and heal me from a brain and body so diseased and deformed? Praise be to God–for he has provided the healing solution through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I find that in my mind I am now renewed with trust in God and love of his methods, but my brain and body remain damaged by years of self-indulgent behavior (Romans 7:15–25 REM).

So if you find that you have a heart to do what is right, but sometimes find that you do exactly what you didn’t intend to do, don’t be discouraged, and don’t buy into the lie that there is no victory. Simply recognize the truth. You have a new heart and right spirit from the indwelling Holy Spirit, but your ability to carry out your new desires struggles against old habit patterns that take time to eliminate and replace with healthier ones. Go to Jesus, praise Him for His salvation and the fact that you are even in this struggle, for it is evidence of His saving work being carried out in your life, and then choose to purposely practice the healthy, good, and right, and over time, you will wire in the new and the old we be removed. Just as Paul wrote:

Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17 GNT).

[1] Adult SDA Bible Study Guide 4th Q 2025, Lessons of Faith From Joshua, p. 64.