Don't Let Your Emotions Rule!
Recently I preached a sermon on Genesis 3, and one of the points I made was how sin usually starts with the word of God being overruled by our feelings. As I prepared for my sermon, I realized just how bad things really were. We live in a world ruled by emotion, and the thing is, that this attitude has completely infiltrated the church. A few months ago, I was having coffee with a young man who had been a Christian most of his life. As we spoke, I finally got to the question I like to ask most people, "can you tell me, what is the Gospel?" He sat there quietly for a minute, and then opened up with, "I feel that the gospel..." I immediately interrupted, I'm sorry brother, but I'm not asking for your feelings on the Gospel, I'm asking what it is. He started up again, "I feel that it is..." and this went back and forth a couple of times, until finally I had to explain that the Gospel is not dependent on your emotions, it is an objective piece of Good News. Your emotions have absolutely nothing to do with it. I immediately saw the confusion in his eyes, and I realized, we were speaking completely different languages!
There are two kingdoms in this world, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. Within this world, we should expect differences in language when it comes to interactions with those of "this world" but we should not have as much difficulty when doing so with those who belong to the Kingdom of God. Romans 12 commands Christians to not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. The way in which we stop sounding like this world, is by having our minds renewed in the word of God.
The reason the word of God is key when it comes to not being ruled by our emotions, is because the word of God is our objective standard and ultimate authority. Our emotions are to be submitted to what it says, and not to be used as a guide to understand what it says. Christians today have been so influenced by the world that we often start with how we feel and allow that to guide us in how we understand and read the bible. Here is what that looks like, "I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things." Isaiah 45:7. Well, we know God is love, and he just would not be love if he actually created calamity, he does not actually make the earthquakes happen and stuff, he just, lets that happen. Do you see what happened there? We do not like what it says; it makes us feel a certain way. So we have to find a way to make it say something besides what it actually says. This happens with passages on marriage, sin, and many others as well. We place ourselves over the word of God.
It didn't surprise me in that conversation to learn the young man hardly read his bible, but many read their bible and still do the same thing. Every conversation starts with how they are feeling and continues with using feelings as the filter through which every thought must go. But this is not how those who belong to the Kingdom of God are supposed to speak. Every thought is to be taken captive and be brought under His authoritative word. We start by first trying to understand what God thinks of our circumstances, what does the word of God have to say about what I am going through? With that as our filter, we then respond. If some have difficulty answering such a simple question as, what is the Gospel, we can just imagine the damage we are doing in other areas as well.
Emotions are not bad, but emotions not put in check by a proper authority are a recipe for disaster, they should never be put in the driver’s seat. Instead, read your bible, learn to speak it, be conformed by it, and grow closer to God through it. It is the only remedy for the malady of this world, and the only thing when empowered by the Holy Spirit that is able to tame the human heart!