flipflop2234 Posted October 9, 2017 Group: Members Followers: 3 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 9 Content Per Day: 0.00 Reputation: 17 Days Won: 0 Joined: 05/11/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted October 9, 2017 Here's my current issue. As a kid, I believed in non-denominational Christianity because that's what my parents believed, I became a pretty lukewarm non practicing Christian from the age of 13 until I returned to my faith at around the age of 17. As I approached January of my senior year (2017), I truly committed to making Christianity my life. I began to see real change in my life after I began to read the word with intent to obey, joined a bible believing church, and prayed more often. I was seeing myself change my mind about how I wanted to live my life and I became more aware of how different my perspective was on life and my goals in life. I kept cutting out sin where I saw it and seeking to grow in my faith. I have been reading about repentance lately because I wanted to see if my repentance was genuine or not. I keep on seeing things about how repentance requires brokenness over sin and sorrow but this didn’t seem to be the case for me.Upon my return to the faith I understood I was a sinner and in dire need of Jesus to save me from the wages of sin (death) and gladly asked God to forgive me by Jesus’ sacrifice with confidence in God’s mercy and promises to those who put faith in Jesus. This made me happy and not sad but these articles are making me fear that because I didn’t go through a season of emotional sorrow towards God about my sin before expressing my faith towards Jesus and vow to turn away from sin that my repentance isn’t genuine. I can’t force myself to have emotions that aren’t there and this scares me. What do you think? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GandalfTheWise Posted October 9, 2017 Group: Royal Member Followers: 24 Topic Count: 40 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1,459 Content Per Day: 0.60 Reputation: 2,377 Days Won: 2 Joined: 08/23/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted October 9, 2017 All of us have a different emotional response to what God does in our lives. Some of us are simply calmer with fewer extremes. It seems to me at times that the Christians with the most extreme emotions are often the ones most visible. I once spent time worrying that I wasn't crying over things that others did or feeling the extreme joy of the Lord that others did. Some people are just different. I think the key thing is the longterm changes in your life. From your description, it sounds like changes are occurring. That's what I would be concerned about. One thing to remember is that part of the message of the Gospel is that the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us and make new creations out of us. Leaving sin behind and living righteously is not so much about will power, discipline, trying to make ourselves feel bad, or in general trying to follow rules and duties by our own efforts, but being transformed into a new person by God's power. It is consistent spiritual feeding through regular prayer, bible reading, being with other Christians, and other such spiritual practices that causes us to grow spiritually and to more and more become the person God intends for us to be. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmuffet Posted October 11, 2017 Group: Royal Member Followers: 34 Topic Count: 1,990 Topics Per Day: 0.48 Content Count: 48,688 Content Per Day: 11.83 Reputation: 30,343 Days Won: 226 Joined: 01/11/2013 Status: Offline Share Posted October 11, 2017 On 10/8/2017 at 8:39 PM, flipflop2234 said: Here's my current issue. As a kid, I believed in non-denominational Christianity because that's what my parents believed, I became a pretty lukewarm non practicing Christian from the age of 13 until I returned to my faith at around the age of 17. As I approached January of my senior year (2017), I truly committed to making Christianity my life. I began to see real change in my life after I began to read the word with intent to obey, joined a bible believing church, and prayed more often. I was seeing myself change my mind about how I wanted to live my life and I became more aware of how different my perspective was on life and my goals in life. I kept cutting out sin where I saw it and seeking to grow in my faith. I have been reading about repentance lately because I wanted to see if my repentance was genuine or not. I keep on seeing things about how repentance requires brokenness over sin and sorrow but this didn’t seem to be the case for me.Upon my return to the faith I understood I was a sinner and in dire need of Jesus to save me from the wages of sin (death) and gladly asked God to forgive me by Jesus’ sacrifice with confidence in God’s mercy and promises to those who put faith in Jesus. This made me happy and not sad but these articles are making me fear that because I didn’t go through a season of emotional sorrow towards God about my sin before expressing my faith towards Jesus and vow to turn away from sin that my repentance isn’t genuine. I can’t force myself to have emotions that aren’t there and this scares me. What do you think? You have genuinely asked Jesus Christ into your life to be your Lord and Savior? You have asked for repentance of your sins? That is all that is necessary. Sometimes people make it way too complicated. This is salvation John 3:16. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTC Posted October 15, 2017 Group: Royal Member Followers: 18 Topic Count: 200 Topics Per Day: 0.05 Content Count: 2,795 Content Per Day: 0.65 Reputation: 1,502 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/25/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/26/1952 Share Posted October 15, 2017 I agree with Gandalf. I seem to agree with him often. Flipflop, if we didn't know you a bit it would be almost impossible to answer your question. But we do you a bit, at least I remember your other posts. You worry about this so much I think your repentance is genuine. People are all a little different from each other so the form an emotion takes will vary. That doesn't mean it's not genuine. I guess you realize this is some of the hardest times to be a Christian. What I mean is, as an example, we know homosexuality is a sin. But our country made it legal and so did several churches. Confusing. Things like this make me glad I'm old. But you, you're young. Suppose you meet someone and after you decided you like the person then you find out he/she is gay, how do you handle that. This is why I said now is such a hard time to be a Christian. I think your repentance is real and I only have 1 piece of advice. Don't read so many different points of view, you'll only get confused. The teen years as well as the 20's are some of the hardest years of life. I think you're doing the right things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayne222 Posted October 15, 2017 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 32 Topic Count: 475 Topics Per Day: 0.17 Content Count: 6,556 Content Per Day: 2.29 Reputation: 7,634 Days Won: 9 Joined: 06/12/2016 Status: Offline Share Posted October 15, 2017 If you do regret your sins. Or even when you sin now God forgives all. If you believe in the Lord Jesus as the son of God and was raised from the dead. Then you are born again. It's not the feelings. It's the trust in the son of God. If you know he is the lamb of God and you know he bear your sins then you are free from sins. Nobody can accuse you. Read Rom 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willa Posted October 31, 2017 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 68 Topic Count: 185 Topics Per Day: 0.04 Content Count: 14,224 Content Per Day: 3.33 Reputation: 16,647 Days Won: 30 Joined: 08/14/2012 Status: Offline Share Posted October 31, 2017 You changed your mind about wanting to sin and turned to God for forgiveness. That is repentance. You accepted it based on what Jesus did on the cross, dying for your sin so that you might enter God's presence clean and acceptable in His eyes. Just feeling bad about sin is not repentance. That is remorse. Don't worry about what people say. Don't let satan steal your joy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts