Pure Motives?

Should a person question their salvation if they do indeed love God, but a lot of the time we love other things or people above Him? Like, we constantly are struggling with loving ourselves and our desires above what God wants.

Q. I wanted to ask you one question about salvation and would appreciate your feedback. It is basically about motives and where we place God. Should a person question their salvation if they do indeed love God, but a lot of the time we love other things or people above Him? Like, we constantly are struggling with loving ourselves and our desires above what God wants.

Also, what about when people first get converted, but their joy and delight are MORE in the benefit of being saved, than joy and delight in God’s character in saving them. Yes, they do have joy and delight in God’s character, but they have MORE in the benefit of being forgiven or avoiding Hell.

Because these motives are present, but not perfected like they should be (more selfish) should a person question their salvation?

A. I’ll assume that you’re speaking about yourself here and that we don’t need to have a discussion about judging the motives of others.

In Romans 7:15-20 Paul said that he was unable to behave like he really wanted to. That’s true of all of us. In Romans 8:5 he said that those who live according to the sin nature have their minds set on gratifying their sinful desires, while those who live by the Spirit have their minds set on pleasing Him.

So, if our intent is to live in a manner pleasing to God, even though we’re rarely able to live up to it, we’re demonstrating our faith. By confessing each time we sin, we’re being purified from all unrighteousness, and have no fear of condemnation.