Two Questions

[YoungLearner]

1) Why is it that the more I want to please God, the more I seem to crave and fall into sin?

2) How can one know if they truly love God? So many people, many Christians even, profess to love Him, yet their lives are really no different from an unbeliever.

 

[MW]

1) Why is it that the more I want to please God, the more I seem to crave and fall into sin?

There is still a part of the believer that is unsanctified and sinful, and this part of him continually fights against the desire to please God. See Romans 7:21-25. This should lead us to a greater appreciation for our deliverance in Christ. As Romans 8 goes on to state, those who are in Christ are delivered from the penalty of sin, are progressively being delivered from the power of sin, and shall ultimately be delivered from the presence of sin.

It could be, also, that there is a greater consciousness of sin the closer one draws to the Thrice holy God. This makes him see the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the way it mars the full enjoyment of God.

2) How can one know if they truly love God? So many people, many Christians even, profess to love Him, yet their lives are really no different from an unbeliever.

Love to God can be seen in the desire to please God. It can also be seen in the believer magnifying God's grace and being humbled under a sense of his shortcomings and sins, as well as in giving God's commandments the highest priority in life.

 

[Cymro]

Ah Lindsey, you have the same problem as the mighty Apostle Paul, who cried, O
Wretched man that I am! A cry every believer since, continually makes. He would delight
in the law of God after the inward man, but he discovered(as you have) another law
warring against his mind, the law of sin in his members. But that law does not now have
dominion over you, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made you free from
the law of sin and death. Join the Apostle in a further cry, "thanks be unto God who giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
As to your other query, it is by their fruit you shall know them.