Understanding Negaitve Emotions - Part 2

 

One reason that addictions are so prevalent in our society is that people are attempting to anesthetize their pain from past trauma. Until we face the pain from the past, we will never be free from it. Many fear experiencing that pain all over again and refuse to address these issues. What they fail to realize is that the pain already affects them every day of their life and causes them to react negatively to current circumstances (Psalm 25:17). They are doping instead of coping.

God is able to heal us of any trauma from our past and to free us to live a victorious future. Pilgrim’s Progress, by Paul Bunyan, is a story about a man who carries a load of baggage with him everywhere he goes. Through the story, he brings this baggage to the cross of Christ and finally lays them down. We do this same thing. We carry emotional baggage that gets heavier with each day we live. This baggage ends up controlling our reactions to life.

Satan rages war with us on the battleground of our mind. He uses our thoughts to infiltrate our soul and to influence our emotions. Then once he controls our mind and emotions, he can also control our will and our actions. This is why Paul encourages us to think only on positive thoughts (Philippians 4:8). In order to get rid of Satan’s negative influence and to think only on positive aspects, we come before the Lord in total surrender and sit quietly and listen to His voice.

Dismissing any distractions, we submit our negative thoughts to God’s microscope and use the principles in Part 1 of this series on Understanding Negative emotions to uncover their root cause. Once we uncover Satan’s lie, we can walk in God’s truth. This allows our emotional baggage to fall away. Sure, we will feel negative emotions again, but they will not be empowered by the pain of our past.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for offering us a way to discard the negative emotions of the past, so we are free to walk in Your freedom and power each day of our life. Help us to concentrate only on whatever is true, righteous, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). Help us to live lives that are so full of holiness that the unsaved will see our good works and glorify You (Matthew 5:16; 1 Peter 2:12). Allow Your peace to transport us through any negative circumstance we encounter (Philippians 4:7).

Thought for the Day: Christ in us is our whole life, and we mature to walk in unity with Him. - Colossians 3:4

 

 

Complete Surrender

Read: Ephesians 3:16-19

"That you may really come to practically know, and experience for yourselves the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience, and that you may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself! - Ephesians 3: 19 (Amplified Version)

Jesus promised that He would make His home within us (John 14:16,20,23). He does this through His Holy Spirit. The Spirit moves into our newly, Born Again spirit at the moment of Justification and He starts cleaning up our act. He purposefully enters us - body, soul and spirit - with the objective of making a conquest of our life through the process of Sanctification. This process of Sanctification means, “to become holy.”

The Holy Spirit establishes His authority, and at the same time He begins conquering for the Lord all of the unconsecrated areas in our lives. The idea of the Holy Spirit invading our being stimulates my imagination. The definition of “invading” refers to the incursion of an army with the intention of winning. I love the concept that the Spirit intends to vigilantly continue to defeat every ungodly area of our mind, will and emotions as we relinquish control to Him.

Without surrendering to the Spirit’s invasion, we never mature in our spiritual walk. We remain carnally minded and live in spiritual vacillation, like a yoyo on a string. We read the Bible, pray and fellowship with Believers only until something else comes along that takes our attention away from spiritual things. We walk on the edge of the wider road of worldly pursuits and partake in every activity that happens to entice us away from walking the straight and narrow road with the Lord.

If we are not able to grasp and understand the depth of God's love for us, then we may also resist His work in our lives. If we walk in the flesh, then the Spirit of God is not in us. If we do not have the Spirit, then we are not Born Again, and we do not belong to God. Once the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in us, then the Spirit will also give life to our mortal bodies. (Romans 8: 9-10) With the Spirit of God living within us, we flourish in the Spirit instead of subsisting in the flesh.

Another consequence of not relinquishing total control of our lives to the Spirit is a lack of the fullness of God in our lives. Due to past experiences, we may harbor fear and believe that God is untrustworthy. This happens because we are experientially unaware of the depths of His great love for us. God's love is so powerful and immense, that Paul prays in Ephesians 3:16-19, that we will at least begin to grasp with understanding the expanse of God's boundless love for us.

It is only by living through repeated trials in our life that we come to trust God to fight for us and to bring us through these conflicts as victors. We experience the depth of God’s love as He works out all things in our life, even the negative things, for our good. Then, the issues, which used to cause us worry, irritation and anger, or which previously catapulted us into a deep depression, no longer bother us like they used to. If we are truly Born Again, then God loves us enough to bring discipline into our lives (Hebrews 12:6). 

When God blinded Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), He brought Saul to the saving knowledge of His love for him. Often our rebellious lives involve years of frustration and possibly some physical and emotional pain, until we come into oneness with God’s Spirit. This is when we know without a doubt that we are loved deeply by an all-seeing, trustworthy God who has a perfect plan for our life. God sees the big picture and He meets all of our needs according to His glorious riches. His plans are to prosper us and not to harm us. They give us hope in a blessed future. (Jeremiah 29:11).

After we give God permission to take over the territory between our ears, He aggressively spreads throughout our entire being, eliminating our pre-existing carnal nature and desires, and replacing all of our harmful thought processes with Godly ones. He fills us with His Spirit throughout all of our being, and the fullness of God gives us the richest measure of His presence within us (Ephesians 3:16-19).

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, any experiences in our lives that are not viewed through the microscope of Your incredible love for us, may cause our faith to crumble. Then we will fail to bear the kind of fruit that You desire. The fruit of Your Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Help us to surrender to Your will and to give Your Spirit full reign in our lives.

Thought for the Day:

The Spirit daily works in our lives to replace our carnal attitudes with Godly attributes.