| Emotions
Part 1 - (Feelings) By Mike Rule "I don’t feel bad anymore, even though my letter hurt your feelings. I did feel bad at first, but I don’t now. I know that the letter hurt you for a while. Now I am happy, but not because I hurt your feelings. It is because God used your hurt feelings to make you turn back to him, and none of you were harmed by us. When God makes you feel sorry enough to turn to him and be saved, you don’t have anything to feel bad about. But when this world makes you feel sorry, it can cause your death." (2 Corinthians 7:8-10 CEV) In these verses, Paul is talking about his own emotions regarding a previous letter he had sent to the church at Corinth. It is interesting to note that Paul was living what he was preaching – doing what God asked of him, in spite of what it made him feel. The reward came for Paul when the church at Corinth received his admonitions and had turned a different way. Likewise, Paul is happy to see what God has done and talks about how God uses bad feeling – negative emotions, if you will – to direct us back to Himself. Think about the way you feel about yourself. Think about the negative emotions that living in the world has created within you. Maybe you feel like a failure, useless, hopeless, unlovable, unwanted, stupid, unacceptable, guilty, or helpless. God could have prevented these negative emotions from being planted in you, but instead God is using your negative emotions to draw you to Him. Your deficiency is designed to lead you to discover His sufficiency. Understand that your feelings do not make you who you are – Jesus makes you who you are. Yes, you have emotions, but they do not have anything to do with who you are. We will look more at this in next week’s Reflection. Verses for Reflection: These people are no better than senseless animals that live by their feelings and are born to be caught and killed. They speak evil of things they don’t know anything about. But their own corrupt deeds will destroy them. (2 Peter 2:12 CEV) But these people insult powers they don’t know anything about. They are like senseless animals that end up getting destroyed, because they live only by their feelings. (Jude 10 CEV) When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God. But even if we don’t feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19 & 20 CEV) And because we belong to Christ Jesus, we (are dead) to our selfish feelings and desires. (Galatians 5:24) Get up and pray for help all through the night. Pour out your
feelings to the Lord, as you would pour water out of a jug. (Lamentations 2:19) |
|