Start Your New Life Today (17 page)
I have found that if I depend upon my flesh through sheer willpower or determination alone, I will fail every time. But if I am determined to resist temptation by calling on the power of the Holy Spirit, I find the strength I need for success.
I have discovered that the Lord is not going to do everything for us in this life. We can’t just find someone to pray for us to be set free from all our bondage. There is a part we must play with our minds and wills. It takes a combination of faith and action.
The apostle Paul said he did not take the grace of God in vain (see Galatians 2:21). He meant that he did not expect God to do everything for him without doing his part too. God gives us the ability to do what we need to do, but we must choose right action. We must keep our eyes on the Word of God and do what it says—not what the enemy causes us to feel like doing.
If you are going to be a person committed to the Word of God, you will have to learn to be led by the Spirit and not by your emotions. Whenever an emotion rises inside me, I test it to see if it is in line with the Word of God. If it is not, the Holy Spirit reveals it to me, and I resist it.
If you are going to be a person committed to the Word of God, you will have to learn to be led by the Spirit and not by your emotions.
That’s how we fight against rash reactions—by using our will to make a decision to follow God’s Word rather than our feelings. We have spent a lifetime reacting to most things without considering God’s Word, so the change will take time. But don’t be discouraged and don’t ever give up!
Developing a Compassionate Heart
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any times when people have been hurt badly in their past, they develop a hard-core attitude and build invisible walls to protect themselves. They may have all the same feelings others have, but they are unable to show them. Sometimes they may even be so hurt they become callous and unable to feel anything. In either case, there is a real need for healing.
The Lord called my attention to two things in a passage in Ephesians 4 about unbelievers. First of all, it says unbelievers are so callous and hard they are past feeling. But in the same verse it says they live by their feelings in sensuality and carnality. As I meditated on that statement, the Lord showed me that such people are past doing what they should be doing with their feelings.
God gives us feelings for a specific purpose in our walk with Him. Unbelievers have been hardened to the place they are, past using their feelings for the right purpose. Satan has moved them into an area in which they are living riotous lives, doing whatever they feel like doing. You and I are not to live by the philosophy of today’s world: “If it feels good, do it!”
Jesus experienced every emotion and suffered every feeling you and I do, yet without sinning (see Hebrews 4:15). Why did He not sin? He did not give in to His wrong feelings. He knew the Word of God in every area of life because He spent years studying it before He began His ministry. The Bible says that as a child Jesus “grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40). By the time He was twelve years old, He thought He was old enough to go to the temple in Jerusalem and “be about His Father’s business” (Luke 2:41–52) but He still had years of learning before He entered His full time ministry. You and I will never be able to say no to our feelings if we don’t have a strong knowledge of the Word of God within us. Jesus had the same feelings we do, but He never sinned by giving in to the bad ones.
When I am hurt by someone and I feel angry or upset, it is such a comfort to me to be able to lift my hurt to the Lord, saying, “Jesus, I am so glad You understand what I am feeling right now, and You don’t condemn me for feeling this way. I don’t want to give vent to my emotions. Help me, Lord, to get over them. Help me forgive those who have wronged me and not slight them, avoid them, or seek to pay them back for the harm they have done me. Help me to not live under condemnation in thinking I shouldn’t be feeling this way.”
It is not a matter of just thinking,
I shouldn’t be feeling this way
; it is a matter of crying out to God and functioning in the fruit of the Spirit already inside us called self-control (see Galatians 5:23). You and I don’t have to feel condemned because we have bad feelings. Jesus understands. His main concern is that we come to the point where we are like Him: humble, gentle, meek, and lowly. This does not mean we become a doormat for people to walk all over, but God wants us to develop compassion, understanding, and softness of heart.
Because I was hurt really badly in my childhood, I developed a hard core and built walls for self-protection, just like those I have mentioned. I became hard and calloused on the inside. But I learned and am still learning that we can become like Jesus, Who is humble, gentle, meek, and lowly, and not harsh, hard, sharp, and pressing (see Matthew 11:29–30).
No matter what our past experiences or our present feelings, we are to be compassionate toward others. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice, but we are also to weep with those who weep (see Romans 12:15).
When God gave Solomon the opportunity to ask for anything he wanted, he requested an understanding heart. No matter what anybody does or has done to us, we should pray for them and try to understand what happened to them to make them the way they are. Hurting people hurt people, but love can heal and change them. Anybody can be tough, harsh, and hard-hearted, but those who seek God can be tender, compassionate, and understanding.
It is obvious Satan wants us to develop hardness and callousness so we
cannot
feel or be sensitive to the needs of others. God wants us to be more sensitive to the feelings and needs of others and less sensitive to our own feelings and needs. He wants us to deposit ourselves in His hands and let Him take care of us while we are practicing being kind and compassionate and sensitive to other people. As believers, we are not to be led by our negative feelings, but we are to be moved by compassion and understanding to those in need. This can only happen when we bend our will to God’s will.
As believers, we are not to be led by our negative feelings, but we are to be moved by compassion and understanding to those in need.
Proper Timing
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would like to give you an assignment. I’m suggesting that you read the book of Proverbs and notice how often it speaks of wisdom. It never tells us to be led by emotion, but it strongly encourages us to pursue wisdom. I like to say wisdom does now what it will be satisfied with later. It does not merely do what it feels like doing, but it chooses what is right.
I think we all know that people led by their feelings do not want to wait for anything. They want everything right now, but as you study Proverbs one of the things you will learn is wisdom waits for the proper time to do things.
Wisdom always waits for the right time to act, while our personal desires call for immediate action. Emotionalism is rash. It does not stop to consider the outcome of its actions. While wisdom calmly looks ahead to determine how a decision will affect the future, feelings are only concerned with what is happening at the moment. “Be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter a word before God” (Ecclesiastes 5:2).
Wisdom always waits for the right time to act.
How many times have you said or done something in the heat of the moment, then later experienced deep, deep regret for your rash action? “Oh, if I had only kept my mouth shut!” It is amazing the damage that can be done to a relationship by one emotional outburst.
One time, when I was trying to learn to control my mouth and not talk back to my husband, I got so emotional the Lord had to say to me, “Joyce, that’s enough! Don’t you say another word!” I hurriedly left the room, ran down the hall, and locked myself in the bathroom. I was so upset I buried my face in a towel and screamed into it! Sometimes the strongholds in our flesh become so ingrained it takes some pretty determined action to break them down. That’s why we need to learn to fight against our undisciplined desires and bring them into submission to the will of God.
How many times would things have turned out quite differently in your life had you only waited and seriously thought about a decision before you made it? We can all think of many times like that, so let’s at least learn from our mistakes and not keep doing the same destructive thing over and over. We think it is hard to wait and often say that, but the really hard thing is behaving rashly and then spending days, months, or even years trying to undo the damage done in that moment of reaction.
Even when I am making a serious purchase I often walk away from the item for five or ten minutes, giving my emotions an opportunity to subside before I decide what I want to do. Most of the world is in deep debt because of emotional spending. Something they see gets them excited, and their desire hinders common sense and reason. I really encourage you to make a decision to be an expert at waiting for proper timing. Don’t do things you don’t have peace in your heart about doing.
Thousands of people struggle trying to keep commitments they made in a time of heated emotion. Think before you make a promise and make sure you really want to do long term what is going to be required.
Your Emotions
God Gave Us Emotions to Enjoy Life
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t times we enjoy our emotions and the support they give us. At other times, when our emotions work against us, we would rather be rid of them! It is important to recognize that God gave us emotions for a reason. Our job is not to try to rid ourselves of emotions but learn how to manage them.
Our job is not to try to rid ourselves of emotions but learn how to manage them.
For example, God caused me to understand anger is just an emotion He gave us for a reason like the other emotions He gave us. Like pain, anger warns us something is wrong. Without the capacity to become angry, we wouldn’t recognize mistreatment of ourselves or another. The Bible does not teach that we are never to feel anger. Instead it teaches us when we do become angry, we are not to sin, but rather we are to manage or control our anger in the proper way: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26
KJV
).
There was a time when God gave me a revelation about the truth of that scripture. One day as I was about to leave home to go preach, I became angry with my husband. Guilt and condemnation came over me. I thought,
Joyce, how can you go out and preach to others after getting angry like that this morning?
Of course, I was still angry and the question really bothered me. As I began to meditate on it, the Lord revealed to me the truth of the above verse in Ephesians which says to be angry and sin not. He let me know that feeling anger is not a sin, but acting on it improperly or not being willing to let it go is sin.
Problems with anger, as with our other emotions, come when Satan tries to use and abuse our anger to lead us into sin. Many times people come to me for counseling, saying, “I have this deep-seated anger inside me.” This type of anger is often a wound left over from childhood hurts. In that case, the answer is not merely to get rid of the anger, but to get at the root of what caused it in the first place.
It is not right to go around feeling angry all the time, any more than it is right to go around feeling pain all the time. Many Christians have the false idea they are never to become angry. When they become angry, they condemn themselves for even feeling angry. No matter how hard we try, we will always have to deal with the emotion of anger.
Many people who struggle with controlling the anger they feel rising are surprised to hear it is actually possible to learn how to control their emotions. We need to learn how to start dealing with them instead of simply venting or repressing and consequently feeling guilty and condemned because of them. Here is another example you might relate to. Imagine for a moment that you are looking through a magazine or a catalog and you spot a photograph of an attractive person of the opposite sex. Suddenly you feel a sexual emotion. Does this mean you are perverted and have something desperately wrong with you? Does it mean you are not really saved—that you don’t truly love God or your spouse? No, it simply means you are human and subject to all the same emotional feelings and reactions experienced by other human beings. The important thing is how you handle your emotions. Do you keep staring at the photo or do you turn away realizing those feelings should be reserved for your marriage partner only? We all have those feelings but we are to learn, with God’s help, to keep them focused toward our spouses.
Romans 6:2 tells us that if we are Christians we have died to sin. It does not tell us sin is dead! Sin still initially presents itself in the form of temptation and then it becomes a full-blown problem if we give in to the temptation. I recommend reading the sixth chapter of Romans in its entirety. If you do that, you will see that our instruction is to resist sin in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not told we will never feel emotions, but we are told to not continue offering our bodies as instruments of sin.
It is important to remember that emotions won’t disappear. They will always be there. We must not deny their existence or feel guilty because of them. Instead we are to channel them in the right direction. We are to deny the flesh the right to rule us, but we are not to deny that it exists.
The message is simple: There is nothing wrong with emotions, as long as they are kept under control. There is a way to manage our destructive emotions so we can use the good emotions in the way God intends—for example, to move in love and compassion toward others and to experience great joy in serving God.
Negative Emotions Steal Your Energy
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o you have any idea how valuable you are? If you suffer from self-doubt or self-hatred, if you abuse your body with bad food or bad habits, even if you simply put yourself at the very bottom of the list of people you do things for, under the kids and spouse and parents and boss and friends, then you do
not
understand your own value. If you did, you wouldn’t treat yourself that way. You were put on this earth to spread God’s love, and nothing could be more valuable than that.