What Paul is saying here in Romans is that, unlike Christ, we have the ability to sin. But because of our union with Christ, our sin nature is powerless. It still exists, it still pulls us toward sin, but we do not have to respond. We can stop ourselves before performing the act in our mind or in reality. But, like we talked about last week, it doesn’t stop all at once. The draw of our sin nature can be very strong especially in the early days after accepting Christ.
Our thoughts are another story. Actions, for the most part, are stoppable. We all learn early which behaviors are appropriate and which ones are not. Stopping ourselves from physically acting on a temptation is, typically, not impossible. My husband used to say that a measure of how close you are to Jesus is how quickly the Holy Spirit convicts you of a sin. I think a measure of how close you are to Jesus is how quickly you stop yourself from committing a sin. We all know that we cannot go around hitting people so we don’t. But, stopping our thoughts are another story. As I grow closer to God, as I grow in my likeness to Jesus, I mentally slap way fewer people.