I am wicked and with a dead heart

pantingdeer said:

For me, getting saved just feels like myself playing a selfish game to go to heaven and not to hell.

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Maybe playing the selfish game is what we need to be saved from.

pantingdeer said:

For many years I have stuggled, never feeling like I was a saved person. If someone asked me if I believed in God and believed in Jesus and that he died and rose again, I would say ‘yes’. But do I really believe it? On an intellectual level, I think I do - I believe the Bible and believe I would not deny my faith for anything. But I watched a video about Jordan Peterson and he said “[belief] doesn’t mean to state it. It means to act it out. And unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it… If you were capable of believing [Christianity], it would be a transfiguring event.”
I realise my heart is not loving and it is very wicked and sinful. Some may say this is conviction but where is my sorrow? Jordan Peterson has broken down and cried thinking about Christianity. Yet, look at me. Someone who would have the audacity to call themselves a Christian and yet does not feel great shame before God for my sin, who does not feel grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice, who does not have love and goodness in their heart. I have never been an emotional person and I know one can be saved without crying but I don’t feel like I’m saved - verging on I know I’m not.
Do I believe? I do think I do. But where is my Godly sorrow and what do I do with this belief? Nothing but identify myself as a Christian. I feel like a faker and a hypocrite who maybe believes and says thanks to Jesus for dying for me, but there is no sincere gratitude (I don’t feel grateful for anything in the world). For me, getting saved just feels like myself playing a selfish game to go to heaven and not to hell. I think Jesus may say to me “I never knew you”.

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Beloved one, consider what we have heard:

“For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.”
‭‭I John‬ ‭3:20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

So if your heart condemn you, you must perceive that God is greater than your heart, and knows all things.

So repent, and believe what God says who you are with Christ and in Christ, for God is greater than your heart and know all things.

To God the Father be thanksgiving through Christ. Amen.

You are overthinking it.
It is not about you; it is about Him. He saved you for His purposes. Let Him do it.
He said if you call on His name you will be saved. If you did then He did. Stop worrying about it. We all have weaknesses. But your faith is not based on what you think or what you try to talk yourself in to. Your faith is based on His faithfulness. He said it and He did it. You are not holding on to Him, He is holding on to you. It is His strength that has you safe, not yours. You are just one little face in a crowd of billions He has saved. You have been swept into the massive crowd of those who have been caught in His net. Give up. Stop trying.
I like the story of the zeppelin. A zeppelin was coming down to the landing field. Ropes were dropped down, and dozens of men ran out to grab them. They were all holding tight to the ropes guiding the craft to the landing spot. Suddenly the wind rose up and the craft began to be blown higher. Most of the men let go of the ropes, but several held fast and were swept up into the air. As the wind increased, the zeppelin gained altitude. The men began to weaken on their grip, and some began to fall. The crowd watched in horror as men fell to their death. One by one they fell until only one was left. The sad crowd watched, waiting for him to finally lose his grip and fall. But he did not fall. Finally, after an hour, the wind settled, and the craft was brought in, and the man was found safe. People rushed up and asked him how he managed to maintain his grip on the rope for all that time. He replied, "I was losing my hold, but then I just wrapped the rope around me and tied a knot. From then on, I just went along for the ride. I did not hold the rope, the rope held me!"
This is us. We do not try to hold on to Christ, we just let Him hold on to us!

pantingdeer said:

For many years I have stuggled, never feeling like I was a saved person. If someone asked me if I believed in God and believed in Jesus and that he died and rose again, I would say ‘yes’. But do I really believe it? On an intellectual level, I think I do - I believe the Bible and believe I would not deny my faith for anything. But I watched a video about Jordan Peterson and he said “[belief] doesn’t mean to state it. It means to act it out. And unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it… If you were capable of believing [Christianity], it would be a transfiguring event.”
I realise my heart is not loving and it is very wicked and sinful. Some may say this is conviction but where is my sorrow? Jordan Peterson has broken down and cried thinking about Christianity. Yet, look at me. Someone who would have the audacity to call themselves a Christian and yet does not feel great shame before God for my sin, who does not feel grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice, who does not have love and goodness in their heart. I have never been an emotional person and I know one can be saved without crying but I don’t feel like I’m saved - verging on I know I’m not.
Do I believe? I do think I do. But where is my Godly sorrow and what do I do with this belief? Nothing but identify myself as a Christian. I feel like a faker and a hypocrite who maybe believes and says thanks to Jesus for dying for me, but there is no sincere gratitude (I don’t feel grateful for anything in the world). For me, getting saved just feels like myself playing a selfish game to go to heaven and not to hell. I think Jesus may say to me “I never knew you”.

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I like Dr. Peterson, but he's not a Christian, so take what he said with a grain of salt. He's a deep thinker, and what I think he was getting at was depth of belief itself. But he's not a believer, so I don't expect him to understand the personal faith of a Christian like a Christian would.

If you have ever been in a car on the highway or on a country road, you have probably experienced velocitation. That is when the vehicle speeds up, and you get used to the 55 MPH or the 70 MPH or however fast you are going. Then when you get into town, you need to slow down to 25 MPH and it feels like you're going too slow. The emotional aspect of faith can be kind of like that. When we become Christians, and we realize what God has done for us and how much he loves us, we often get, for lack of a better word, a rush. It can be exciting and hopeful as a new Christian, you "feel" something but not really, since it's different from so many other stimuli. Our faith is small and weak and shallow, we've only stepped in to the shallow end of the pool, we're not strong swimmers yet - but something's there. And as we learn more about our faith and as we exercise it, we learn to swim. And there comes a point where we don't feel that anymore, and we wonder why we don't feel that anymore, and we wonder why that is - we wonder if we're not really Christians after all, or if there is something else wrong with us. What has actually happened is that God is still in the pool with us, but unlike before, we don't have him holding us in place while we kick and paddle, and the floaties on our arms have come off. It's the next step in our progression, we need to use what he has taught us to grow our faith. We have to be more intentional about it, and learn to trust him without the aid of that "rush" that we had before. That's pure faith. Not chasing or maintaining feelings.

Getting even deeper into this - if I believe something enough, it will motivate me to do good or avoid bad - since Christianity teaches that we have a sinful nature and we need to be born again, and to be sanctified once we have been born again, falling short in our conduct can't really be a sign that we are not Christians. This is different from people who say they're Christians and just don't care that they're sinning just as much as before, I'm talking about confessing Christians who are conscientious but have issues with consistency in avoiding sin or in practicing good deeds. I believe that Jesus is Lord, and that after being crucified and killed, he rose from the grave, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. This absolutely happened. This also doesn't make me perfect. I love him for reaching down to me, but not enough - since I still entertain my selfish desires. I absolutely believe that he is holy and authoritative, and it follows that his teachings are right. But not all of his teachings make sense to me, so I believe his ways are right, but not enough. I need to grow in these areas. But Scripture doesn't say that lacking perfection in these areas disqualifies us from being Christians. Rather, because we do not morally qualify as righteous, we had to be born again to become Christians, and thus have God place the righteousness of Christ on us while forgiving our sins.

pantingdeer said:

For many years I have stuggled, never feeling like I was a saved person. If someone asked me if I believed in God and believed in Jesus and that he died and rose again, I would say ‘yes’. But do I really believe it? On an intellectual level, I think I do - I believe the Bible and believe I would not deny my faith for anything. But I watched a video about Jordan Peterson and he said “[belief] doesn’t mean to state it. It means to act it out. And unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it… If you were capable of believing [Christianity], it would be a transfiguring event.”
I realise my heart is not loving and it is very wicked and sinful. Some may say this is conviction but where is my sorrow? Jordan Peterson has broken down and cried thinking about Christianity. Yet, look at me. Someone who would have the audacity to call themselves a Christian and yet does not feel great shame before God for my sin, who does not feel grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice, who does not have love and goodness in their heart. I have never been an emotional person and I know one can be saved without crying but I don’t feel like I’m saved - verging on I know I’m not.
Do I believe? I do think I do. But where is my Godly sorrow and what do I do with this belief? Nothing but identify myself as a Christian. I feel like a faker and a hypocrite who maybe believes and says thanks to Jesus for dying for me, but there is no sincere gratitude (I don’t feel grateful for anything in the world). For me, getting saved just feels like myself playing a selfish game to go to heaven and not to hell. I think Jesus may say to me “I never knew you”.

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For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

a very honest post .... Paul seamed to believe that there was no good thing in him even after he was saved .... this question you have of whether you are saved or not is holding you back in coming to understand what you are being saved from ....

Hi @pantingdeer

It sounds like you are getting there. Because why else would you bother writing this post?

In the west, and for many years, Christianity has given the impression that the Way is an overnight change and that you are simply born again. That can be the case for some but for most others the journey is one of discipleship - a process. Therefore, don't weigh up your faith to another's but rather to truth and sincerity.

It sounds like you still need that further level of revelation of who God is and just how very real and present He is. With that will come the realisation of your state and the strengthening of faith.

Don't look to the church for this or a teacher, but rather look to the Word itself. And I don't mean just the Gospels but rather the whole Word. Consume it all, study it, dive into the books you are fuzzy on and seek out every grey area. Get utterly familiar with it and learn it as if you were going to sit an university level exam for it. Learn the history, learn the people, when you get stuck or confused - don't back away or skip over it - research for answers, hearing intepretations of others to find the truth in your heart.

This is not a short journey. But in doing this you.with find Him and the Holy Spirit will guide you, providing you are trully sincere in your seeking. This is a promise in Scripture.

Along with this, pray full heartedly to be filled with the Holy Spirit as a daily prayer and don't stop until you receive that baptism (you will know when it happens). But if it doesn't happen after a month or two, don't lose heart. If you continue to ask the Spirit will come upon you.

In doing these two things you will find Him and your faith will be increased greatly and the Scriputres will comes to life in ways you hadn't previous imagined - becoming almost like food for your soul as your read it. And you won't want to put it down!

So do not think about the label of Christian and how you are compared to others or Pererson (a man I'm trully troubled over). But instead seek Him always and to understand His ways daily - then everything else will fall into place.

I hope something in that helps you.

Peace

pantingdeer said:

For many years I have stuggled, never feeling like I was a saved person.

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What do you expect a saved person to feel like, exactly? Do certain feelings make you saved?

pantingdeer said:

If someone asked me if I believed in God and believed in Jesus and that he died and rose again, I would say ‘yes’. But do I really believe it? On an intellectual level, I think I do - I believe the Bible and believe I would not deny my faith for anything. But I watched a video about Jordan Peterson and he said “[belief] doesn’t mean to state it. It means to act it out. And unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it… If you were capable of believing [Christianity], it would be a transfiguring event.”

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There is definitely a relationship between faith and corresponding action. The apostle James really pressed hard on the relationship between them, asserting that a genuine, heart faith - a saving faith - is one that anticipates living out what has been believed. "Faith without works is dead, being alone," James wrote. In contrast, mere intellectual faith has no expectation of acting out what is believed; it is agreeing that a thing is true without having any intention of letting that thing alter one's living, except, perhaps in the most superficial, convenient way.

But be careful: Doing does not always reflect being. Where does doing the will of the Father begin? With loving Him. (Matthew 22:36-38) Obedience to God starts with an attitude of mind and heart, not action. And the apostle Paul put a really fine point on this by writing,

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

As the Pharisees demonstrated, one can honor God with their lips but have a heart that is far from Him. (Matthew 15:1-9) The Pharisees were professionally obedient to God, to His law (and a big bunch of their own religious traditions and rules), but they were evil hypocrites, white-washed tombs full of dead men's bones, sons of hell, even.

The important question to ask yourself isn't "Am I living like I believe?" or "Do I feel like I'm saved?" but "Do I love God?" This love isn't, at bottom, a sentimental, semi-romantic feeling, an emotion, but a desire, strongly wanting God, a thirst and/or hunger for Him, a yearning for Him.

Psalm 42:1-2
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?

Psalm 63:1
1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 143:5-6
5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands.
6 I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Selah.

We can have such desire - and very powerfully - without it ever being particularly romantic or emotional. Such a desire may lead to potent emotions but these would be the by-product of love, not love - strong desire - itself. I mention this because many times Christians mistake emotion, a sentimental affection for God, as love for Him. And when they don't have such feelings for God, they start wondering if they love Him. Love for God - a powerful desire for Him - can exist without any feeling of affection, however, though such desire may, in time, produce strong feelings of affection.

pantingdeer said:

I realise my heart is not loving and it is very wicked and sinful.

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This is to acknowledge no more than what God has said in His word is true of us all. Welcome to the club. (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10; Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3:3, etc.)

pantingdeer said:

Some may say this is conviction but where is my sorrow? Jordan Peterson has broken down and cried thinking about Christianity. Yet, look at me.

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Jordan Peterson's tears are not the standard for genuine love of God. Many are the tears people have shed in religious moments who knew God not at all and whose tears did nothing to change this fact. What is proof-positive of salvation is a changed life, a life in which the Holy Spirit is clearly at work.

Am I Really Born Again?

pantingdeer said:

Someone who would have the audacity to call themselves a Christian and yet does not feel great shame before God for my sin, who does not feel grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice, who does not have love and goodness in their heart. I have never been an emotional person and I know one can be saved without crying but I don’t feel like I’m saved - verging on I know I’m not.

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Well, the answer is not to follow Jordan Peterson's example. For all of his emotion, he is not yet a child of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a Christian.

Sin has consequences. It leaves one's conscience blunted and twisted; it deafens one to the conviction of the Spirit; it hardens one's heart to the wickedness of one's sin and to God. It is no wonder, then, that willful sinners feel little (or nothing) about their sin or God. But, this can change. Over time. By God's power. Feeling such conviction and sorrow over one's sin may happen only after one is saved and indwelt by the Spirit, however. To be saved, though, one need only acknowledge one's sin for what it is (1 John 1:9) and determine to forsake it by God's enabling grace (repentance).

pantingdeer said:

Do I believe? I do think I do. But where is my Godly sorrow and what do I do with this belief? Nothing but identify myself as a Christian. I feel like a faker and a hypocrite who maybe believes and says thanks to Jesus for dying for me, but there is no sincere gratitude (I don’t feel grateful for anything in the world). For me, getting saved just feels like myself playing a selfish game to go to heaven and not to hell. I think Jesus may say to me “I never knew you”.

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Well, if this is the case, it doesn't have to remain so. Sorrow often comes after God softens a person's heart and this happens often only after a person is saved and the Holy Spirit goes to work on the person, changing their heart, cleansing them from sin, and teaching them the truth.