I understand your predicament. I've never heard a pastor preach the Truth, so few seem to "get it."
Paul wrote about the influence of the Sinful Nature in Romans chapter seven, but in Colossians, Paul wrote about how that Nature is cut away by Christ, thus, Paul could not have been under the control of the Sinful Nature when he wrote chapter 7.
Romans 7:5, 18 NLT - "When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. ... 18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't."
Above, Paul is referring to his "old" Sinful Nature. Below, he tells of how that Nature is cut out by Christ
Colossians 2:11 NLT - "When you came to Christ, you were "circumcised," but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision--the cutting away of your sinful nature."
Have a good day . . .
Clearly, Paul in Romans 7 is speaking
in the present tense, a regenerate child of God. He goes into the striving and struggles the child of God goes through in this life. The regenerate child of God seeks to follow God's commands, he has a true sense of his sinfulness and need.
He cannot be speaking of himself before conversion because no unregenerate cares about sin or seeking God:
The following is the description of the unregenerate:
"as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none that understandeth,
There is none that seeketh after God; They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one: Their throat is an open sepulchre;
With their tongues they have used deceit: The poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace have they not known:
There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Rom 3:10-18, ERV)
You spoke of context, I'll connect the leap from Romans to Colossians. Paul gave the solution:
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." (Rom 7:24, 25, 8:1, ERV)
What a comfort for those of us who are believers and recognize we sin every day, because we know we all sin or we are lying, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1John 1:8, ERV) Moving up to Colossians:
"and
in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:
in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he quicken together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses; having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having put off from himself the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Col 2:10-15, ERV)
The putting off the body of the flesh speaks of our sins being put onto Jesus and his righteousness placed on us.
This is our standing as the elect, born from above children of God. We are declared righteous in Christ, but we still struggle in our daily lives in our fight against sin. The exchange is seen clearly as stated again by Paul:
"Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God
in him." (2Cor 5:21, ERV)
The Westminster Confession, which is followed by the 1689 Baptist Confession states the historic Christian view on it accurately:
4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, (Rom. 5:6, Rom. 8:7, Rom. 7:18, Col. 1:21) and wholly inclined to all evil, (Gen. 6:5, Gen. 8:21, Rom. 3:10–12) do proceed all actual transgressions. (James 1:14–15, Eph. 2:2–3, Matt. 15:19)
5.
This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; (1 John 1:8, 10, Rom. 7:14, 17–18, 23, James 3:2, Prov. 20:9, Eccl. 7:20) and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin. (Rom. 7:5–8, 25, Gal. 5:17)