Gotcha. I ask because, although I’ve been recognizing sins and turning from them, I get worried because I don’t always feel bowled-over in sorrow over having committed them in the past. :/
Well, this is what happens when a person sins willfully and repeatedly, against the conviction of the Spirit and their own God-given conscience. One's moral sense dulls, and one's sense of the "exceeding sinfulness of sin" is blunted. Thank God, these things can be restored!
In God's economy of things, feelings follow the mind and will. Sometimes, this means the believer acts without having, at first, a strong emotional dimension to that action. Usually, as the believer proceeds, their emotions come into line, supporting the course they have chosen.
Also, on the “seared conscience” topic, I just came across
this interesting post; apparently Luther actually took “seared” to mean an *overactive* conscience. Not sure how that makes sense (?), but just thought I’d mention.
Luther's view, though interesting, is certainly a minority view (singular, even). Scripture speaks of the hardening, binding, deafening, and blinding effects of sin, the twisting and corruption it works upon a person's moral sense and rationality. Read
2 Peter 2 or
Jude 1. This doesn't seem to comport well with Luther's idea about the seared conscience being over-sensitive. Scripture depicts a dulling-down, a blunting of moral sensitivity and a hardening into sin as one continues in it
When Jesus challenged the Pharisees, he didn't indicate they were over-sensitive to sin but the "blind leading the blind into the ditch" (
Matthew 15:14). In fact, they were so far gone into sin, so hardened into it, that they were calling the miraculous healing work of the Holy Spirit the work of Satan! (
Matthew 12:22-37) None of this speaks to a sensitivity to sin, as far as I can see.