God-Given Emotions

 

Many people condemn emotions. These individuals focus more on their thoughts and put strict controls over their emotions. They do not trust emotions or emotional people.

The chances are that they were severely wounded by an emotional person in their past, or had a stoic person as their role model. They exalt the mind and censure the emotions.

The Beatitudes reveal to us that God has and expresses emotions (Matthew 5:1-12). For instance, He is angry with and hates the wicked and prideful as well as those who practice and teach iniquity (Psalm 5:5).

He has compassion on the oppressed (Psalm 7:11; Judges 2:18); jealousy over His people (Exodus 20:5); calms us with His love; and rejoices over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).

God grieves when we make unwise choices, which bring us harm and cause us to reap negative consequences (Psalm 78:40; Genesis 6:6). He also personifies love in the person of Jesus Christ (1 John 4:8).

Our Creator gave us emotions, as well as a mind in order to make balanced choices with our life. The Holy Spirit-controlled temperament provides us with perfect stability of mind and emotions.

We do not have to live as pseudo-intellectuals nor do we need to indulge in negative emotions all the time. We can get in touch with our feelings and use our emotions to express our innermost thoughts.

Prayer:

Father God, You made us with an intricate human body that works together like finely tuned clockworks. You also gave us a soul that expresses itself through our body and emotions. Our eyes are the windows of our soul and often reveal what we are feeling and thinking. You call on us to maintain a healthy body, soul and spirit each day of our life (Proverbs 3:5-8).

Yet, we often ignore the needs of all three of these entities by not exercising, skipping meals and not hydrating; as well as making poor choices for our life, and ignoring or stuffing our emotions (Proverbs 14:30). Remind us that it is possible to feel negative emotions, to express them without sinning, and to find healing for them (Ephesians 4:26; Genesis 4:6-7). Teach us to find a balance between our soul and spirit. Please restore our soul when life attempts to crush us (Psalm 23:3).

Thought for the Day:

God made us as triune beings: body, soul and spirit; our soul consists of our feelings, choices and thoughts; and we can walk in God's Spirit and stay in perfect balance with all three. - 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Genesis 2:7; Galatians 5:16

        

God is Not Mocked

 

We often take our success for granted. We feel entitled to receive the rewards of all we accomplish, because we forget where our blessings actually come from or to show gratitude to God for His provision in our life.

We expect to live a pleasant life and to reap the rewards of our hard work and planning, regardless of our behavior. We even grow lax spiritually and compromise our holiness by dabbling in the devil's den of iniquity.

We can be sure, however, that our sin will find us out (Galatians 6:7; Numbers 32:23). We will eventually reap the destruction that we are sowing. Our quality of life may suddenly be jerked right out from under us as this devastation catches up with us.

We start to reap the rotten fruit, which is the result of the tainted seeds we planted in our garden of life for so long. We saw nothing wrong with our little indiscretions with Satan's suggestions, because we worked hard, provided for our family and lived for righteousness more than giving in to sin.

Yet, God will not be mocked, and evil corrupts our good morals and grieves the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:33; Ephesians 4:30). God will not endure our disobedience forever. There comes a time when we have to pay the dues of our corrupt flirting with sin.

We may experience God's discipline in small, compassionate ways, which brings our repentance; or we may harden our heart and continue in immorality until we eventually lose the blessings of God on our life, which we are used to experiencing.

We tend to get angry with God at times like these, railing against Him for expecting us to walk uprightly before Him all the time, comparing our self to the lives of other people rather to understand God's requirements that we live a holy life before Him (Luke 12:48).

If we stand firm in our pride and resist the Spirit's drawing, we will sink lower and lower into the mire of destruction and wickedness, continuing to blame others for our behavior and making excuses for our thoughts, words and deeds.

However, if we surrender to God's discipline, humble our pride and accept our fault in the circumstances, repenting with our entire soul and spirit for our duplicity, then God can favor us with His blessings once more.

Prayer:

Father God, human pride and self-assurance are snares of the enemy. You show us in Your Word how You want us to live our life. Unless we walk justly and love mercy and walk humbly before You, we will reap the corruption of our sin regardless of how inconsequential that we consider it to be (Micah 6:8).

Draw us close to You, never let us go, restore to us the joy of our salvation and help us to lay down our sins so we can hear You rejoicing over us with singing (James 4:8; Psalm 51:12; Zephaniah 3:17). Never allow us to grow so lax in our spiritual walk that we compromise Your values.

Thought for the Day:

When we choose to enjoy the momentary pleasures of sin, we set our self up for the loss of God's blessings in our life; sin is ultimately destructive and always leads to disparaging times of injury for us. - Hebrews 11:25

God's Inclusive Love

Authentic Believers have no desire to sin; however, the world, the devil and the flesh cause temptations for our body and soul, which are often hard to resist.

The good news here is that God gives us a way to escape any temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13). Temptations also sharpens our faith and work patience into our character (James 1:2-4).

Satan may bombard us with doubt and anxiety, but if we look to Christ His perfect love will cast out all of our fear (1 John 4:18).

Some people refuse to admit they are sinners; however, they are living in deception, and calling God a liar (1 John 1:8-10). Anyone willing to repent is quickly forgiven by God and cleansed from all iniquity.

Jesus is our advocate with our Father when we do sin, because He paid the penalty of our sin (1 John 2:1-2). This proves that God has nothing but love for us.

God is love, and when we abide in God, we abide in His love (1 John 4:16). In God’s love we have no fear. His love for us gives us confidence in His faithfulness.

Prayer:

Father God, You are with us, and that is all we need. We rejoice in our weakness, because then You can show Yourself strong through us. People see Christ’s power within us rather than our own abilities and adequacy (2 Corinthians 12:9).

We actually exult in our insufficiency, because we realize that we need to depend on You in every moment of our day to make us strong. Our attitude in our weakness is actually a testimony of Your love for us.

Thought for the Day:

When we succumb to temptation, we fail to avail our self of the escape, which God always supplies; and we ultimately disappoint our Father God. 
– 1 Corinthians 10:13