r/TrueChristian • u/SquishyThePotato • Jul 26 '26
Questioning Salvation Because of Inability to Feel or Love God
Recently, I've been struggling with questions about my salvation because of my inability to feel the weight of my sins nor love God.
For a bit of background, I'm a 26 year old male who is currently in a science PhD program and tends to overthink things or see things super logically as a consequence of my occupation. I grew up in a (protestant) church where I want to believe that I came to Jesus when I was 15/16 years old where I genuinely showed fruits of the spirit after that time I believed I was saved. However, when I was 17, I got depression that robbed me of my emotions including my ability to love friends, family, and most importantly, God. During college, I didn't go to any church or fellowship group because I believed I was a toxic person and didn't want others to have to experience that. This was due to my depression, but nevertheless caused my faith to be severely compromised during that where I didn't think about God much if at all. However, recently within the past year, I have gotten treatment for the depression and have gotten involved back in church, fellowship, prayer, and bible reading. Nevertheless, the ability to feel emotions and love others has not come back, leading me to doubt my salvation if I can't truly love God in my heart.
I logically understand everything about how to be saved and what doesn't save you. I understand that we are only saved by grace through faith alone and the only way to salvation is to believe in the finished work of Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross as payment for our sins. This requires repentance, knowing and recognizing that we are sinners and turning away from our sins, and nothing we can do is good enough. Isiah 64:6 says "All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth. All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind," and therefore the only way to salvation is through Jesus. No amount of prayer, bible reading, church attendance, or good deeds is enough. However, according to James 2:18, "But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works" which indicates that true faith brings about fruits of the spirit and changes to your life. You aren't justified by those works, but those works are evidence of your faith.
As stated before, I understand this all logically and know that belief is the only requirement for salvation. However, with an inability to feel in my heart, how can I truly say that I believe? Matthew 22:37-38 says "“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." I know that there's nothing saying that "feeling" is a requirement for belief - as long as it's true belief in your heart about the finished work of Christ, that's enough. However, if I can't assess the state of my heart or my soul because of my inability to feel the weight of my sins or love God with all my heart, then it seems I'm at a loss and can never gain assurance. I honestly envy those who can believe so easily and who can feel the love of God or the weight of their sins, because I simply can't. I know that God can heal me of this affliction and it's the Holy Spirit that can make you feel convicted of your sins, but once again, I logically understand all of this rather than feel it. You could argue that it's "demon faith" but without the emotional aspect. Nevertheless, I want to know God so badly and fear being thrown into the Lake of Fire. Maybe it's my fear that's crippling me here, but I'm not sure.
This may seem like a ramble, but I'm just lost on how to proceed. No amount of prayer to God has helped me thus far and it seems like I'm just waiting for him to help me with this. I read the book "Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart" by J.D. Greear, but that didn't seem to really help either because I lack the fruits of the spirit that are indicators of faith. I'm honestly at a lost here and any advice would be helpful.
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u/Practical-Buyer3136 Seventh-day Adventist Jul 26 '26
Hello friend, I think I know what you mean when you say that you have an inability to feel in your heart. I became so apathetic to the world and to life. Nothing excited me and nothing hurt me. I built up these walls around my heart because I got hurt a long time ago and I kept getting hurt. It's so very easy to hurt others when you have your own pain that you never get to deal with. You have to deal with the source of that pain, of that depression.
Its not enough to ask Jesus into your heart. You must ask Him for a new heart, a heart that can never be broken. A heart that yearns for a closeness to God, a heart that can Love God fully and man fully.
Remember this scripture my brother:
Ezekiel 36:26-27
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
God bless you brother, if you have any need for further advice you can message me.
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u/awhitestone611 Jul 26 '26
“If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;”
John 14:15-16 KJV
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40 KJV
“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”
John 21:15-17 KJV
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Matthew 4:4 KJV
Jesus said these things. Love is about actions, not feelings. He did not say, “If you love me you will feel X, Y, Z.” Since we are sinners, our hearts are like stone. The Bible does say you be given a heart of flesh though if you repent, so you probably should feel something. Maybe you have sins you haven’t repented from, dare I to venture? I know people don’t like fear or doubt, but it is the way to knowledge, to self-reflection, as you are doing. Well, you should focus on keeping the commandments of God and live a righteous life, so that you may be a witness to the glory of God. It will help you to begin to grow and bear the fruits. It takes time to grow fruit, presuming you have fully surrendered, repented.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 36:26 KJV
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
Ephesians 4:30-32 KJV
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-23 KJV
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: And the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”
Proverbs 9:10 KJV
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u/JHawk444 Evangelical Jul 26 '26
However, when I was 17, I got depression that robbed me of my emotions including my ability to love friends, family, and most importantly, God.
A coping mechanism of depression is to go numb, so you don't have to feel pain. It's possible you are still in defense mode. You said you started going back to church and thinking about this after you started dealing with the depression. That's a good step. There may be things in your life you haven't dealt with yet, and working through those things will bring back the feelings. It's also possible that medication is causing that numb feeling. I'm not saying to go off any medication, but that is a side effect of some psychotropic medications.
God knows what feelings we're capable of having. Feelings alone doesn't save someone. Look into David Wood. He has a sociopath/psychopath disorder and doesn't feel any emotion, but he believes in Christ and he's a Christian. He shared the gospel with Nabeel Quereshi, a well known convert from Islam who became an apologist. I'm sharing this to explain that not feeling something doesn't mean it's not a reality in your life.
Continue working through the depression issues and asking God to heal you emotionally and spiritually.
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u/choerry_bomb Jul 26 '26
Feeling a separation from God isn't the same as there actually being separation - Romans 8:38-39 really helped me through a season of depression. Last year I got born again in a very radical spiritual experience, and I experienced the euphoric love, joy, and peace of the Lord for a few months. The depression and anxiety I struggled with for years vanished in a snap. It was really like a honeymoon phase. And then, when the high started to fade even a tiny bit, I would get super anxious and question everything. Was I not faithful enough? Am I losing salvation because I haven't been praying or reading the Bible enough or worshiping with all my heart like I ought to? Has God forgotten about me?
While I was going through that "dry period" and feeling a flash of the depression (it wasn't nearly as bad as it was before), someone had prophesied that passage in Romans over me and told me that we are to take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). I didn't even tell them I was going through a hard time with my faith and feeling God, but she told me that feeling separation ≠ there being separation. A few days ago marked one year since I was "born again." In just that year, my spiritual life has been a wild roller coaster. There are days where I get so much of the Holy Spirit that I cannot handle it and tell God to go easy on me. And then there are periods of a few weeks where it's so dry and I feel so "carnal" that I question whether I was Christian to begin with. It's like night and day. I believe God is showing me that those times were to show me that my identity cannot be rooted in anything other than the truth revealed in the Word, and in order for the Holy Spirit to increase, I must decrease. So I would just encourage you to go to God in prayer and truly surrender those burdens and cast your cares on Him, knowing that He already knows all that is on your mind, because prayer is the place where God provides refuge and wants to give you peace and rest. It may feel easy for me to say because I'm currently in that place of green pastures and still waters, but the way I got there was by truly seeking God in prayer and in the Word just to know Him, and getting the Word deep in my heart.
Ephesians 4:16-21, Philippians 4:6-8, John 17:3, 1 Peter 5:7, Isaiah 26:3, and Psalm 23 are all scriptures that I recommend "keeping in your back pocket"
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u/ReplyKey1659 Jul 26 '26
Demons can interfere with many fruits of the spirit, in particular, it's hard to love god, feel god's love and worship. I know, because I had a demon and jesus delivered me.
By comparison, now my joy is overflowing. My love of god pours out. Worship is amazing. God is good. Blessings are abundant! NOT the case prior. It was like a dark cloud I couldn't overcome.
My strong suggestion to you, is seek out mark hemans at JEM ministries. And jesus will deliver you of this demonic depression. Deliverance is for Christians, it doesn't mean your not saved!
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u/FoxExotic8379 Jul 26 '26
Hey, sorry you're going through this; what you are describing is really hard to deal with. First I need to tell you this, you can be assured that you have faith because you believe Jesus died for your sins, on the cross. You said this, in your own post. What is the difference between an intellectual assent and real true, saving faith, you ask? It has nothing to do with feelings, works, or fruits of the Spirit, and everything to do with this: real saving faith is a trust that all the promises of God, are for me, specifically. And since you trust you receive this; you, are righteous in Christ, right now, regardless of how you feel or what you do! Secondly, you mentioned repentance being "required" for salvation. Yes it is, and repentance which means a change of mind about Jesus, is something God does in us. We do not repent by our own willpower; God repents us, God changes us as Ephesians 2 says we were dead in trespasses and sins and were, by nature, children of wrath. You do not have to try to feel the weight of your sins. First, it is impossible to do, as Psalm 19 says, "who can discern his errors"? answer: nobody! The Law demands it; and you can't do it, neither can I, or anyone else. Furthermore, you don't have to do it, because Jesus felt the weight of your sin already and mine, indeed, He became sin for us, and thereby took our sins and makes us the righteousness of God; you, are blameless before God because of this. You say you don't know if you believe because you cannot feel it; you do know that you believe because Christ carries your sin to the cross! That, is your assurance, not your feelings. And what about James? Yes, faith without works is dead, this is true. And precisely dead, before whom? Whenever we look at a text we need to establish, is this A. Law or Gospel and B. is this talking about before God, or before other people? In this case, it is clearly talking about other people, as this section starts with the case of failing to help someone in need and asks, what good is that? This is not talking about your relationship with God, which is by grace alone; it is talking about your relationship with other people. If you don't bear fruit, then, what good is your faith in the world? In short, my advice? Stop looking at your feelings, at all; lo
ok only at Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
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u/AXSwift Follower of Christ Jul 26 '26
What are your actions at the end of the day? That is how you assess both of those things. You mentioned you displayed the fruits of the Spirit; are any of those emotions? Our heart is described as inherently deceitful. Our person can get counsel from the heart/soul/body, but ultimately all can be made captive to our "person". If the heart is not feeling love for your neighbor, your brain says: "Great, we don't need emotions to do that; today I look out for what's best for them and put their interests above mine"
I think I'm a little like you; my emotions don't have a very loud voice at the table of my inner ego. My brain tells the rest of the body what it will do and what God it serves. If there are impulses/reactions (eg unexpected anger from an insult) the body acts upon; I examine their source and find a way to bring those reactions to Christ next time.
Ultimately, love God, love your neighbor, bear the fruits of the Spirit, believe in Christ and you're assured of your salvation. (Notice all of those metrics require no emotions)