I feel that I cannot feel my sin

[Brooklyn1992]

This is a strange title but it is one that I have long struggled with. I often read about the experience of other believers, past and present, feeling so grieved over their sin, to the point of weeping and feeling such elation in their faith in Christ, and I sometimes feel frustrated because I feel like I cannot feel that way. I know sin is opposed to God and His ways, and I pray for Him to keep me from it every day, but this is one area where I struggle. I want to feel that I have a heart that yearns for more obedience and love to Jesus and that has that mourning over sin for how my sin has offended God, but often I feel like my emotions are not stirred. And I’m not talking about emotions connected to sentimental music or something. I’m talking stirred by spiritual truths. I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture. But it is strange because I do feel or am sensible of the fact that I often feel insensible about it. Anyone else experience this or have some advice how to deal with this? Or seen something similar?

 

[friend of]

We walk by faith, not by sight. Same goes with feelings. You feel as though you do not feel as you ought. That is better than being lukewarm and unaware. Actions speak louder than words, so repentance is essential even when your feelings are not there to compliment your behavior. Pray that God will stir you up out of slumber. Pray to desire holiness above all else. It is a prayer I have to pray myself as my emotional engagement isn't as strong as it once was either. God knows our hearts. We must learn to look to God more than ourselves and our feelings. Again, actions speak louder than words. Prayer is an action in itself. Learn that our sin grieves God's Holy Spirit and learn to hate what He hates. First acknowledge it mentally and then get it into your heart. If one does not desire holiness then their profession is actually in question. You clearly do desire holiness, so praise God, allow Him to do the rest. God bless my friend.

 

[Brooklyn1992]

We walk by faith, not by sight. Same goes with feelings. You feel as though you do not feel as you ought. That is better than being lukewarm and unaware. Actions speak louder than words, so repentance is essential even when your feelings are not there to compliment your behavior. Pray that God will stir you up out of slumber. Pray to desire holiness above all else. It is a prayer I have to pray myself as my emotional engagement isn't as strong as it once was either. God knows our hearts. We must learn to look to God more than ourselves and our feelings. Again, actions speak louder than words. Prayer is an action in itself. Learn that our sin grieves God's Holy Spirit and learn to hate what He hates. First acknowledge it mentally and then get it into your heart. If one does not desire holiness then their profession is actually in question. You clearly do desire holiness, so praise God, allow Him to do the rest. God bless my friend.

I do not feel as I ought at all. I even question if I truly desire holiness too, and ask forgiveness if I am coming to God out of selfish motive or self preservation or whatever else. God is so infinitely Holy and I have made sinful, selfish choices so many times over. It hurts that I don’t think I’ve ever had a good weep about it. I do not feel satisfied with any of my affections in my belief in Christ.

 

[SeventhFisherofMen]

This is a strange title but it is one that I have long struggled with. I often read about the experience of other believers, past and present, feeling so grieved over their sin, to the point of weeping and feeling such elation in their faith in Christ, and I sometimes feel frustrated because I feel like I cannot feel that way. I know sin is opposed to God and His ways, and I pray for Him to keep me from it every day, but this is one area where I struggle. I want to feel that I have a heart that yearns for more obedience and love to Jesus and that has that mourning over sin for how my sin has offended God, but often I feel like my emotions are not stirred. And I’m not talking about emotions connected to sentimental music or something. I’m talking stirred by spiritual truths. I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture. But it is strange because I do feel or am sensible of the fact that I often feel insensible about it. Anyone else experience this or have some advice how to deal with this? Or seen something similar?

It's true Jesus knows you very well, he knows your desire not to sin, He knows you cannot feel your sin, and that much more will honor when you turn from and repent of your sin when you do despite not feeling it. Maybe it is Grace that is preventing you from experiencing the immediate consequences. God is not fooled though if you use this trait as an excuse to sin or not to repent you may feel your sin sooner than you'd like. Just know Jesus is there waiting for you to repent, and He is there preventing you from having consequences of sin through feeling.

 

[frank1234]

When we(as Christians)sin, we feel(know) that we have committed a sin. That feeling(or knowing) brings us to confessing our sins to God and asking Him to help us not to commit that sin again. This is called remorse and repentance. How strong we "feel" or don't "feel" it is not important, as long as we are remorseful about it and that remorse brings us to confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness from Him. Actually a simple acknowledgment of that sin is even enough(as long as you are sincere about it). If we don't have that sense of remorse, then we are not even Christians, because the apostle John said that no person who has The Holy Spirit can go on sinning(meaning because of having any sense of guilt or remorse).
This is where we can test ourselves and know and be assured whether we are saved(in Christ) or not.
I hope this is helpful.

 

[Tolworth John]

have some advice how to deal with this

Do as ' A Friend of ' says in post 2.
Concentrate on serving God , in your personal bible study and service of God.

 

[timf]

The degree of emotional reactivity can vary from person to person.

One might imagine an encounter in heaven where one person runs into someone he knew in life. Both parties would recall all the things wrong they did to each other and all the things right they failed to do. In that moment one might think that overwhelming sorrow would be the reaction. However, both would have such a deep and abiding knowledge of the extent of Christ's mercy that covers all that they could only both rejoice.

Perhaps a limited ability to recognize or understand the depth of our sin is a gift from God until we can also recognize his love that covers it. If we could only see our sin, who would not be crippled with grief?

 

[tturt]

Asks God for Godly sorrow "For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death]." II Cor 7

 

[aiki]

This is a strange title but it is one that I have long struggled with. I often read about the experience of other believers, past and present, feeling so grieved over their sin, to the point of weeping and feeling such elation in their faith in Christ, and I sometimes feel frustrated because I feel like I cannot feel that way.

Well, sin itself has a blunting effect upon one's conscience. Sin hardens us, blinds us, and deafens us to the things of God (Hebrews 3:12-13; 1 John 2:9-11; Acts 28:26-27, etc.), sin sears our conscience (1 Timothy 4:2) and in time brings men and women to a place of reprobation and total uselessness to God (Titus 1:16; 2 Timothy 3:8; Romans 1:28-32). In such a condition, people do not feel the sort of pangs of conscience or the conviction of the Spirit that they should. Is this you?

I practiced a martial art for nearly three decades. It cost me a great deal to do so; lots of time, lots of energy, lots of money. I suffered a long litany of injuries. I did so because I loved the training, the skills I developed through the training, and the people with whom I trained. But, you know, I never once shed a tear of joy that I was able to be a martial artist; I never wept for love of the dojo; I never emoted strongly about my training. Instead, I showed that I loved being a martial artist by enduring in the training regardless of the cost; I showed I loved being a martial artist by persisting, by remaining faithful to it despite the sweat, pain, and expense of time and money, day after day, year after year.

Whose proclamation of love would you trust more?: The one who visited you once a week for an hour or so, singing your praises and weeping a bit in the process, professing their love for you and then departing, silent until their return the following week; or the one who remained with you day-in, day-out, sticking with you even when it cost them much to do so, never shedding a tear in expression of their love for you but sacrificing themselves again and again for your sake?

Love is not, at bottom, an emotion, but desire. Love is a strong longing for something, a deep passion for it, a thirst for a thing that compels corresponding action.

Psalm 42:1-2
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul 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; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as 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 that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands.
6 I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

Isaiah 26:8-9
8 In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

Tears do not certify a genuine love for God; feeling and expressing strong emotion doesn't necessarily prove a person truly hungers after God. Many times I've watched people lifting their hands in praise, cheeks glistening with tears, singing loudly and swaying with intense feeling, who openly disdain those who don't follow suit, who set themselves above their less demonstrative brethren as spiritually superior, who hive off into cliques of like-minded, hyper-emotional folk where they speak in critical tones of those who expose, in the absence of religious high feeling, a cold, sinful life. Ugh. It isn't intense feeling that reveals a genuine love for God but a holy, self-sacrificing, Christ-centered life:

Titus 1:15-16
15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them who are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

Matthew 15:7-8
7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

I know sin is opposed to God and His ways, and I pray for Him to keep me from it every day, but this is one area where I struggle.

Are you submitting to God's will and way throughout every day? (James 4:7) Are you presenting yourself a "living sacrifice" to God every day? (Romans 12:1) Are you walking with God in humility, yielding yourself to His control all throughout every day? (Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:14; 1 Peter 5:6; James 4:10) If not, whatever pleas you may make to God, you do so as a rebel toward Him. God doesn't fill rebels with Himself. And if God doesn't fill a person with Himself, they can't fellowship with Him and can't experience the abundant life that is theirs in Jesus.

So many believers are struggling every day against themselves, straining to stuff down their natural, selfish, fleshly desires and impulses, pleading with God to change them here and there, to remove this struggle and that struggle, to give them joy, peace and power, but never once actually consciously submitting themselves wholesale to God's authority and control. But it is only in a person's persistent surrender to God that He acts fully to transform them. To do otherwise, to simply override a person's will and impose His own upon them, would be to act in an unloving way; to compel obedience, to force Himself upon those He invites to walk with Him in love, would be to destroy the love-relationship God seeks to establish with them.

The Great Battle for all Christians isn't with themselves, with bringing themselves under their own control, but with dying to themselves that the life of Christ might expand in and through them, with yielding up everything to God's will and way and waiting on Him to transform them. Surrender is the key to victory, not determined self-effort, or deep sincerity, or full commitment.

I want to feel that I have a heart that yearns for more obedience and love to Jesus and that has that mourning over sin for how my sin has offended God, but often I feel like my emotions are not stirred. And I’m not talking about emotions connected to sentimental music or something. I’m talking stirred by spiritual truths.

How about stirred by God Himself, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, whose temple you are if you are truly born-again? (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Romans 8:9-11; 1 John 4:13; Titus 3:5) As good as spiritual truths are, it is the Author of them by whom you (and I) really need to be "stirred." And the only way this happens consistently is by our taking the lower place before God at all times, consciously, again and again, placing ourselves under His control.

Many times, believers come to desire religious emotions, feelings, and sensations rather than God Himself. They want a sensual/emotional experience connected to God somehow, but not submission to His will and way when they are mad at their spouse, or angry at being cut off in traffic, or frustrated with a rebellious child. Fortunately, God does not give us such things; for He knows we would come to worship and seek after sensations and emotions rather than Him. This doesn't stop many believers, though, from manufacturing their own emotional and sensual experiences and calling them "God." I hope you won't be one of them.

I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture. But it is strange because I do feel or am sensible of the fact that I often feel insensible about it. Anyone else experience this or have some advice how to deal with this? Or seen something similar?

"Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving..."

It is dangerous to make our feelings the basis for regarding a thing as right or wrong. Whether we feel it is or not, sin is sin if God says it is. Imagine the sociopathic serial killer who makes his feeling about murdering someone the basis of the rightness or wrongness of doing so. He feels nothing, no prick of conscience, no guilt or remorse, no qualms about murder. You wouldn't say, I'm sure, that he was moral, then, in what he was doing, that if he didn't feel murder was wrong, it was, therefore, okay to kill people.

 

[SANTOSO]

This is a strange title but it is one that I have long struggled with. I often read about the experience of other believers, past and present, feeling so grieved over their sin, to the point of weeping and feeling such elation in their faith in Christ, and I sometimes feel frustrated because I feel like I cannot feel that way. I know sin is opposed to God and His ways, and I pray for Him to keep me from it every day, but this is one area where I struggle. I want to feel that I have a heart that yearns for more obedience and love to Jesus and that has that mourning over sin for how my sin has offended God, but often I feel like my emotions are not stirred. And I’m not talking about emotions connected to sentimental music or something. I’m talking stirred by spiritual truths. I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture. But it is strange because I do feel or am sensible of the fact that I often feel insensible about it. Anyone else experience this or have some advice how to deal with this? Or seen something similar?

Beloved one, you feel that you can’t feel your sins because lack of repentance.

Beloved one, you can deal with this by asking God to give grace of repentance, that He may grant you a contrite, broken heart and humble spirit.

Beloved one, pray.
You can pray this:


Dear Lord Jesus,
I am asking You
for the greatest gift I could ever have:
the gift of a broken and contrite heart,
the grace of tears.

Send me the Spirit of truth
and help me to see
the depths of my sins
in Your all-revealing light.

Convict me by Your Word.
Let it be the standard
for my thoughts and words,
for what I do and refrain from doing,
for my work and Christian service.

Keep me from
applying my own cheap standards.
Help me to commit to
the standard of the Sermon on the Mount.

I want to see myself as You see me
and to judge myself as You would judge me one day if I had not repented of my sin.

Through Your Holy Spirit
help me to discern
Your loving admonition in everything
that happens to me,
especially in Your discipline.

And give me the grace
to respond willingly.

Hear my prayers
and grant me a broken and contrite heart —- not satisfied with self, nor sure of my own rightness.

Give me
tears for my sins
and joy for Your forgiveness.

Thank You, Lord,
for I know You will hear my prayer.
Nothing brings You more joy than
seeing a sinner repent.
Thank You that our tears of repentance
are precious to You.

I am not going to focus
on my hard and unrepentant heart
but look to You, Lord Jesus.

You came to destroy
all self righteousness
and hardness of heart.

By redemption
You won for me a new heart
that is soft and humble.

Help me to persevere
in prayer and faith
until my stony heart is melted
and I am able to weep over
what I have done to You and to others.

Give me the grace of tears
for my sinful attitudes:
my lack of mercy, my harshness
and unkindness, my gossiping,
my envy and jealousy,
my untruthfulness,
my over attachment to
people and possessions.
Turn my life around completely.

Thank You, Lord.
You create new things out of nothing.
And so I ask You to create in me
the repentance I lack.
Let the grace of repentance
well up in newness of life
and love for You,
transforming me from the inside out.

I long to honor You
with a life reflecting
the joy of forgiveness,
as a sinner saved by grace.

Make me ready
for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb of God.
Amen.

 

[BobRyan]

This is a strange title but it is one that I have long struggled with. I often read about the experience of other believers, past and present, feeling so grieved over their sin, to the point of weeping and feeling such elation in their faith in Christ, and I sometimes feel frustrated because I feel like I cannot feel that way. I know sin is opposed to God and His ways, and I pray for Him to keep me from it every day, but this is one area where I struggle. I want to feel that I have a heart that yearns for more obedience and love to Jesus and that has that mourning over sin for how my sin has offended God, but often I feel like my emotions are not stirred. And I’m not talking about emotions connected to sentimental music or something. I’m talking stirred by spiritual truths. I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture. But it is strange because I do feel or am sensible of the fact that I often feel insensible about it. Anyone else experience this or have some advice how to deal with this? Or seen something similar?

The more distance we have from God - the less conviction we feel about sin.

To focus on Christ is to enter God's presence.

Here is a handy world-class epic commentary on the life of Christ that brings the reader to Him...

The Desire of Ages — see first chapter "God With Us"

 

[Brooklyn1992]

Well, I certainly hope I’m not reprobate. It is not even when I commit a sin or have a sinful thought that i the issue. Though I certainly do sense the need to confess it right away when I know I’m violating God’s word.
The issue I’m referring to is that I often feel frustrated over feeling so stubborn hearted about my religious affections, and that I do not feel the sorrow and mourning over one’s sinfulness I have seen in the lives of other believers or in older Christian writings. To just contemplate how I have failed Jesus so many times by sinful choices and break down over it. And to gain a stronger apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. I often feel my repentance and motives are insincere when I do not feel as I think I ought.

 

[SANTOSO]

Well, I certainly hope I’m not reprobate. It is not even when I commit a sin or have a sinful thought that i the issue. Though I certainly do sense the need to confess it right away when I know I’m violating God’s word.
The issue I’m referring to is that I often feel frustrated over feeling so stubborn hearted about my religious affections, and that I do not feel the sorrow and mourning over one’s sinfulness I have seen in the lives of other believers or in older Christian writings. To just contemplate how I have failed Jesus so many times by sinful choices and break down over it. And to gain a stronger apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. I often feel my repentance and motives are insincere when I do not feel as I think I ought.

Beloved one,let me share with you what I have written before, that you may perceive God’s grace in truth.


Are we weeping the way we should ?

Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy! -Psalms 126:5

I do not know when I sow in tears.
How I know then to reap with shouts of joy ?

But when remembering when others accuse, hurt, offend, mistreat, reject and abandon me !
I know then I have sowed in tears!

How then I reap with shouts of joy ?

He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy, as he carries his sheaves of grain. -Psalms 126:6

Well, I know about the weeping part !
But what is this about bearing the seed for sowing means??
Where is this home that I can shouts for joy?
What are my sheaves?

Now the parable is this: The seed is the God’s message.-Luke 8:11

I come to understand then those who are bearing up with difficult people when telling the message of God are those weep !

In other words,
Are we weeping when we tell the message of God ?

Why we weep ?
Yes, we have heard God is love.
But when told to love one another?
We find it is impossible with our strength to bring to its goal in us!
We find no strength in ourselves to forgive others !
We find no wisdom in ourselves to speak others when others stop listening to us or distort what we say. Why are God tell us to do the impossible?

Why this happened?

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked,
for whatever one sows,
that will he also reap. -Galatians 6:7

Those who keep sowing in the field of of their old nature,
in order to meet its demands,
will eventually reap ruin;

but those keep sowing in the field of the Spirit
will reap from the Spirit everlasting life.-Galatians 6:8

Have we sows in the Spirit?
Like what apostle Peter said :

Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God;

whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies;

so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ,
to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.-1 Peter 4:11

Many could hate us, oppose, shake their heads, humiliate or even curse us to death when we tell the message of God !

Be gracious to me, O LORD!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O You who lift me up from the gates of death, -Psalms 9:13

that I may recount all Your praises,
that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in Your salvation. -Psalms 9:14

Yes, God see us when people hate us, too!
He knows our affliction when we are hated.
God even lift us up from the gates of death
and brings home to Zion in the heavenly city of Jerusalem
where is our home, that is,
where we shouts for joy for His salvation!

As Jesus have said:

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. -John 15:18

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own;
but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. -John 15:19

Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.'
If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.
If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. -John 15:20

But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me. -John 15:21

Yes, when we suffer for Christ’s sake, we weep !

My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep Your law of Spirit. -
Psalms 119:136

He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
as he carries his sheaves of grain. -Psalms 126:6

Yes, the seed that we carry is Jesus Christ Nazareth !
Yes, we carry the seed, that is, the message of God, His gospel !
Yes, we carry our sheaves of grain into the heavenly mountain, Mount Zion !

And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. -John 12:23

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. -John 12:24

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. -John 12:25

If anyone serves me, he must follow me;
and where I am, there will my servant be also.
If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. -John 12:26

Let us hate to see ourselves walking in the old nature,
Let us find ourselves walking in the Spirit, for we shall reap eternal life that the Lord our God promise.

Let us be filled with this divine life of God when the Spirit of God fills our hearts with the love of God.

Let us rejoice in this steadfast love of God.

Let us go to the holy mountain, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King Jesus Christ, the joy of all the earth. -Psalm 46:1-2

To God the Father be thanksgiving through Christ. Amen

 

[friend of]

Well, I certainly hope I’m not reprobate. It is not even when I commit a sin or have a sinful thought that i the issue. Though I certainly do sense the need to confess it right away when I know I’m violating God’s word.
The issue I’m referring to is that I often feel frustrated over feeling so stubborn hearted about my religious affections, and that I do not feel the sorrow and mourning over one’s sinfulness I have seen in the lives of other believers or in older Christian writings. To just contemplate how I have failed Jesus so many times by sinful choices and break down over it. And to gain a stronger apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. I often feel my repentance and motives are insincere when I do not feel as I think I ought.

The unregenerate are unconcerned with such things.

 

[Waymarker]

..I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture..

All of us fall short, even Jesus said-
“Why do you call me good?..No one is good except God alone" (Luke 18:19)

So all we can do is address our faults to rectify them even though Satan the arch-troll might be whispering in our ear stuff like "you're useless, you'll never be any good" like he does, so just tell him to shut up and get on his bike.

Fact is, the only people who fall very, very badly short are nonchristians..

 

[ChristServant]

This is a strange title but it is one that I have long struggled with. I often read about the experience of other believers, past and present, feeling so grieved over their sin, to the point of weeping and feeling such elation in their faith in Christ, and I sometimes feel frustrated because I feel like I cannot feel that way. I know sin is opposed to God and His ways, and I pray for Him to keep me from it every day, but this is one area where I struggle. I want to feel that I have a heart that yearns for more obedience and love to Jesus and that has that mourning over sin for how my sin has offended God, but often I feel like my emotions are not stirred. And I’m not talking about emotions connected to sentimental music or something. I’m talking stirred by spiritual truths. I can sense some peace in Christ or some apprehension of having offended God in small flashes, usually when reading scripture. But it is strange because I do feel or am sensible of the fact that I often feel insensible about it. Anyone else experience this or have some advice how to deal with this? Or seen something similar?

You can only repent from sin in your life if you understand what sin is, how GOD sees it, how Christ suffered because of it and it's effects on people's lives.

People become Christians and do so without understanding sin. If you do this how can you repent? Some Christians don't believe that repentance is required and I have seen this first hand in Churches and there is no difference what-so-ever between them and unbelievers. In fact the Christians like this I've come across can be more judgmental and feel their better than others.

I would suggest you read the ten commandments and do a study of sin and it's effects. Sin destroys a great many lives, that's why I think as Christians we should understand it and it's consequences.

Peace be to all those in the Body of Christ.