I'm afraid that my repentance is not genuine. I have confessed my sins to the Lord but I am afraid that the only reason I have come to him as out of fear and that I love the Lord's gifts and not him. I greatly fear hell, for good reason, it's hell. I have had to deal with many doubts and fears during my walk with the Lord but this one has really scared me. After my confession to the Lord and plea for forgiveness, I have of course attempted to turn from my sin. I haven't had much trouble addressing the habitual sin in my life that I can cut out and the Lord has been graceful in allowing my successes such as my ceasing of masturbation, inappropriate contentography, lying, cheating, and even stealing. This conviction is usually never in the form of a discernible "godly sorrow" or crappy feeling but rather a realization that I need to stop followed by fear of disobeying the creator of heaven and earth. My change of action usually comes from me reading a sort of warning or forbidding passage in scripture and seeing that it applies to me and then I pray for strength and motivation to cease said sin and ask for forgiveness for doing it in the past. I am usually lacking in remorse over the past sin because I have confidence that Jesus payed for me in full and get a sort of motivation to stop because I've been set free from the bondage sin and get assurance of eternal life because of my apparent growing in faith and obedience. This usually has worked with my realization of the wrong committed in combination with fear of God's Wrath if I disobey him as my means of motivation. I have asked God to transform my fear into a perfect love that is spoken of in the Bible that drives out fear and I've asked him to help me love HIM and JESUS rather than just the gift of eternal life, peace, and joy. I've said that I'm sorry to the Lord and I wish that I have never committed those sins but I'm afraid that I don't feel sorry enough for the actual acts. I want to feel Godly sorrow for my sin and I know that my sin is basically spitting on Jesus in rebellion but I can't force myself to feel sorrow even though I want to! I typically find out that I am participating in a sin and confess it and seek to cease it right away to conform to gods will but a brokenness or sorrow is usually absent and I just pray that God would strengthen me to continue in abstinence of whatever sin is relevant.
Is the path that I'm on looking healthy or do I need to do some serious reevaluating?
Is my conviction through reading and hearing God's word followed by an urge to change my ways not of the spirit and of my own decietful heart?
Id love to hear what you guys think.
Is the path that I'm on looking healthy or do I need to do some serious reevaluating?
Is my conviction through reading and hearing God's word followed by an urge to change my ways not of the spirit and of my own decietful heart?
Id love to hear what you guys think.