I can't love God enough

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Phill

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The title says it all…i just can’t seem to love God enough to get out of my life of sin. Even though i believe in God, and I believe that Jesus sacrificed himself for my sins, it seems as if i would rather have momentary pleasure than please an almighty God.
Prayer doesn’t seem to help, no matter where i turn it all seems hopeless. I keep pushing forward in hope it will get better but i feel like i haven’t even made it to the first rung of christianity. Has anyone else had this problem or provide any advice?
 
Phill said:
Has anyone else had this problem…?
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Yeah, some guy named Saint Augustine. I too. It’s probably very common, not that that makes it any better.

Advice? Don’t be discouraged. Don’t let the devil tell you that you don’t love God, or that there’s no hope.

While it is true that sin is a form of non-love, I would avoid drawing any conclusions about the quality of your love based on your sins. Love the best you can, sin the least you can, and keep working on both.

I’m praying for you.
 
Something is triggering your impulse to sin. Find the trigger. Remove it.

Keep it simple. If you add your sins up or even add the triggers up, it will seem impossible.

One day, one trigger at a time.
 
You do not have to make yourself perfect before you can love God. That’s the reverse order. Love God, ask Him for help in changing, let Him help you die to sin. You aren’t trying to prove your strength to change without Him, you are accepting your need for Him and His love for you. To paraphrase so many of the Saints, the first and most important step is to realize you are utterly dependent on God to even take the second.

Understand also that it may take a long time and it might seem like you aren’t making progress. It is often hard to see progress except in hindsight. Don’t concern yourself with timelines or metrics, those are the devil’s words. God loves you even when you stumble, and He is overjoyed when you reach for Him when you stand back up.
 
Do the best you can. Then remember salvation doesn’t come because we are good. It comes because God is good.
 
I am not sure you are addressing the articulated concern.
The concern sounded in orthopraxy not orthodoxy. Love of neighbor is foremost orthopraxy for example. Right living begets right thinking. To a much lesser extent, the other way around
 
Hi Phill,

As I am reading your post, I just wanted to affirm you of your greater desire for God! Just by reading this post, I can see the light of Christ shining so brightly through the broken vessels of ours!

1. BROKEN BUT GODLY-SACRED VESSEL OF LIFE
Despite being broken, I am always constantly reminded that this unique vessel of life that is given by our ever-loving and ever-graceful God! This is a Godly sacred vessel of life that Jesus Christ paid with His passion, death and resurrection, which justify our distress and guilt when we sin.

In reading your post, I can see the light of Christ shining so genuinely and brightly from you into me!

BEING PERFECT?!? HOW?
2. GOD MEETS US WHERE WE ARE, STRETCHES US TO OUR LIMITS, AND BRING US TO HIM AT EVERY MOMENT OF LIFE.
Your desire to strive to be more holy is truly edifying! That same desire and maturity in discerning the temptations and sins in your life, so that you may grow closer to God every step of the moment is truly a grace from God!

Maybe being perfect, isn’t about striving to be infallible! It is about desiring God every moment of your life, striving to live in the image of Christ, allowing God’s light to shine truthfully from our broken vessels.

Maybe being holy, isn’t about not making mistakes and not sinning! It is about the continuous desire and dependent on God in times of failures (similarly, in times of victories). Maybe, it is about doing our best every moment, and cooperating with God, and allowing God to complete the rest in His time and according to His plans.

3. GOD IS WITH US
This is what that keeps me going every moment of my life. This is what that drives me to desire so much in receiving Communion - to be living in Christ and allowing Christ to live in me, to be One with God.

In times of struggling and failures, in times when there seems to be no way out, in times when the world turn against you, I always feel helpless, hopeless and lonely! It is in times like this that God reminds me, “Emmanuel”. God is with us.

In our suffering, Jesus Christ is suffering with us. He hopes to bring good out of us always! He does not intend for suffering to bring good, but He permits suffering. Definitely not a sadistic God, but an extremely personal God who suffers with us, lives with us, and bring us to communion with Him.

4. Contemplating and praying the 14 Stations of the Cross and/or the Holy Rosary (contemplating about the Sacred Mysteries, especially the Sorrowful Mysteries

Will continue to pray for you and for everyone, including myself!
May the peace of the Lord always be with all of us!
 
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Yeah, a lot of us sin big bad sins for years on end with either a vague feeling of unease or a definite feeling that we’re doing wrong but can’t seem to get ourselves on the right track.

If you have a relationship, friendship, or other trigger that is causing you to keep falling into bad habits, start by cutting the cord on whatever it is. Then just keep trying. Fall down 9 times, get up 10. Keep asking Jesus to help you. Go to church at least on Sundays, Pray every day. Eventually you will find yourself taking steps out of your bad habits. It will likely be a process that happens over the long term and not all of a sudden one day you stop doing all your sins and live as a perfect Catholic. It took me years.
 
Faith is the first step, so keep the faith. Conquering sin is a process, replace bad habits with good habits. Pray when temptation knocks at the door. Perseverance is key.
 
Brother, every single Christian alive feels your pain. I would be concerned with the spiritual health of someone who said they loved God enough.

You say prayer does not help, remember Paul who begged three times that his thorn (whatever it was) be removed, and you of course remember his answer. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

I recommend prayer of abandonment to God, asking Him to demonstrate His power in your weakness for the glory of His name.

" Abandonment to Divine Providence " is a good work by A Catholic author which is excellent. I have read other books on this topic by protestant authors but you will probably be more comfortable with A Catholic.

God is a good Father, He does not deny good gifts to His children, try to believe it in your struggles.

Finally I thought I’d share a hymn I find helpful on this topic, but the same writer as Amazing Grace. It’s more of a Lament than a hymn.

May the God of grace give you joy and peace through His Son Jesus, for the glory of His name, Amen.
 
One thing to point out (coming from someone who struggles as well) is that when you say you “can’t love God enough”, nobody on this side of eternity can. God deserves and is due an infinite love, but we’re finite, fallen human beings and can only love finitely. The important part is we keep trying to love God as best we can, even with our struggles, and that we let God’s love and mercy define us and not our sins. The Japanese have a saying, “fall down seven times, get up eight”, which means each time we fail we get back up and try again.
 
Interesting that the Japanese have that saying. The book of Proverbs in the bible says the same thing

“for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.”
Proverbs 24:16
 
Phill said:
i just can’t seem to love God enough to get out of my life of sin
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We all sin, everyday. Now mortal sin is something you must try to avoid. I recommend praying the Rosary everyday while meditating on the corresponding mysteries. Pray to Jesus that you can’t do it on your own. You can’t do anything on your own. It is by His will that you even continue to exist, even as you sin. He holds you in existence because He knows you can overcome these things. God even sent His son to die for you because He knew you’d be able to love Him.
 
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