Ears to Hear

Good Morning,

     Today I was thinking about emotions and how we all have them and feel them operating in our lives.  Even people who say that they are not moved by emotions are usually the ones that experience deep emotions and don't know how to deal with them.  Sadness, hurt, anger, shame, grieve, happiness, excitement, pleasure, etc., and the list goes on and on.  God gave us these emotions as a way to learn to yield to the supremacy of His Word in our hearts.  There is nowhere in His Word where He tells us not to feel anything, but He does tell us to bring everything under the control of Holy Spirit by our own human spirit.  We are told not to surrender ourselves to the emotion of fear.  Every time that He would reveal Himself to anyone He would say, "fear not".  Why?  Because fear has torment and fear keeps one from perfect love. (I John 4:18) Fear inflicts punishment.  "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but He has given us a spirit of power, and of love and of a sound mind." (II Timothy 1:7)  So we know that we are not to yield to fear in any form, but resist it.  We must not give voice to the spirit of fear, but give voice to love, power and soundness of mind.  Anyway, I am not really dealing with the emotion of fear today, but some of the other emotions that we mentioned.

     God's desire is for us to learn how to control our emotions, and not let them control us.  One of the fruit of the Spirit is 'self-control', it is the character that we are to grow in and develop as Christians.  Self control is simply controlling yourself, restraining your emotions and attitudes.  "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, faith, goodness, meekness, temperance (self-control): against such there is no law." (Gal. 5:22-23) Let's look at a few verses that tell us how to deal with our emotions.  Here in the Amplified Bible and in the New Living Translation is Ephesians 4:26-27.  "And don't sin by letting anger control you.  Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil."

     (NLT) "When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down.  Leave no such room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him].  So here we see we can be angry, but we must control it and not let anger control us.  We learn to yield to the Word.  Here is another example in the Word.  "Now we would not have you ignorant, brethren, about those who fall asleep {in death}, that you may not grieve [for them] as the rest do who have no hope [beyond the grave]." (I Thess. 4:13) Here we see that sorrow most be yielded to the Word of God, we must not be overwhelmed with sorrow or grieving.  Read II Corinthian 2:9-11, godly sorrow works repentance in the heart.  Sorrow in and of itself is not bad if we yield our emotions to the Word, and we control and restrain ourselves from being controlled by emotions.  So don't be afraid to feel, just control yourself in light of the Word.  When we decree God's way of thinking then we bring every thought captive and our feelings will follow.

 

Love,

Pastor D.