The Benefits of Emotions

 

Thoughts and emotions are not the enemy of our spirit or of the Spirit of God. God puts His desires in our heart, and uses negative thoughts and emotions as red flags to alert us to unmet needs and unresolved conflicts in our life.

As we take these issues to the cross, we gain God's perspective on them, and His wisdom and truth on how to overcome or to fulfill them, until His peace rules in our heart.

The word "emotion" comes from the Latin word "exmovere" which means "to move out". Our emotions motivate us to feel, and then to do something about them.

Emotions energize us, express how we feel, arouse our passions, spice up our life and restore our soul. Living without emotion is to live in a mental world of clinical, analytical thoughts without expression.

Embracing our emotions is healthy and fulfilling. Denying them is clinical and unhealthy. We block off a part of our self that is very much like our God, who exhibits emotion in so many ways.

Usually, an emotional person is empathetic, not weak; compassionate, not unstable; child-like, not childish. Emotions are very vital to our psychological and physiological well-being.

Emotions influence our attitude about our self, our world and other people. They also impact our actions. We think thoughts and then feel feelings.

Our personality influences our emotions and our emotions affect how other people perceive us. Owning our feelings without blaming them on other people is a healthy activity which allows us to effectively control them and to submit them to God's Holy Spirit to perfect them and to make them more like His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23).

Prayer:

Father God, unto You I lift up my soul. My soul often grieves because of the cares of this world. Only You know how to best renew my mind with Your Word, restore my emotions to true joy and peace, and return my will to following after You.

You are my heart, and my soul rejoices before you. You set my feet to dancing the dance of joy, and I acknowledge You in all of my ways. We attest to the fact that all glory is due to Your name. You alone are worthy of all of our praises (Ephesians 3:4; Psalm 25:1, 29:2).

Thought for the Day:

Our soul is our personality. It contains our thoughts, our choices and our emotions. Faith brings light to our soul, and helps us to think before we speak, so we do not trip over our own words.

No Longer a Sinner - Accepted in Christ

 

Jesus is the picture of humanity at its finest, devoid of the depravity of sin and filled with the power of God. What Satan stole from humanity in Genesis 1-3, Jesus - the Sacrificial Lamb and the soon and coming King - restores to us in Revelation 20-22.

As authentic Believers, we see God's glory with an unveiled face as He transforms us into the appearance of Christ by His Spirit. We are changed into His image from one stage of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Christ abides within us and redeems us from sin, as God writes His laws on our heart and adopts us as His children (Hebrews 8:10-13; Ephesians 1:5). God's Spirit gives us liberty from the flesh and fills us with His fruit (1 Peter 1:19; Galatians 5:22-23).

This is an experience common to every Believer, with no respect to one person above another. It is a free gift, just as Salvation is free (Romans 6:23; Galatians 3:1-3). We all see the face of Christ reflected in us and in one another (1 Corinthians 15:48-53; Romans 8:17; 1 John 3:2).

Christ is our whole life (Colossians 3:4). We gaze upon His face in our private moments with Him, and feel His Spirit and His presence filling us to overflowing throughout the day.

Sin no longer claims our attention; its debauchery is disgusting to us; we have no desire to continue to reap the destructive consequences of its power. We abide in Christ and He in us (1 John 4:15).

We come to know God, and Jesus whom He sent, which provides us with eternal life now as well as for eternity (John 17:3). We see His glory in us, which comes from God and fills us (John 1:14, 17:24). Sin has no part in our life.

Prayer:

Father God, it is Your plan that all of humanity enjoy the benefits of Christ's death on Calvary, the glory of His resurrection from the grave, and the proximity to You from His vantage point on His throne in Heaven as we walk in the ever-increasing glory of holiness.

We are accepted through Christ into Your beloved family (Ephesians 2:19-22), pure, as He is pure; and our life reflects His perfect image. You provide us with every good thing that we need to fulfill Your will for our life (1 Timothy 6:17); and You sustain us through every trial that we encounter in life. For this we give You all of the praise and glory that is due to Your name.

Thought for the Day:

Through the processes of Justification, Sanctification and Glorification, we move from obscure sinner to sacred Saint in Christ, as we are filled with an increasing measure of the fullness of Christ through God's Spirit who abides within us. 

- Ephesians 3:16-19

A New Creation

We are not children of God until we actually receive Christ's saving work in our life (John 1:12). Regeneration is the lovely word, which describes what happens to us.

Jesus plugs us into His power supply and charges our battery. What we were blind to before we received His to salvation is now more than obvious to us (John 3:3).

He makes us a new creature and everything about us changes for the better (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to God instead (John 16:8).

Through regeneration, we turn from unrighteous decisions and live and walk in God's truth and righteousness (Roman 6:1-2, 15; 2 Corinthians 7:10). Everything we think, say and do is motivated from our desire to bring glory to God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Living in continual sin proves that we do not know God's Truth and that He does not live in us (1 John 2:4-6; Romans 3:23). However, Salvation is just a prayer away (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8-9).

It is a free gift from God, which we cannot earn for our self, but was earned for us by Christ's willing suffering of the horrendous death on the cross (1 Peter 2:24).

God plainly sees all that we do in secret. He rewards our righteous deeds and disciplines us for our transgressions; because He loves us and does not want us to reap the degradation of sin any longer.

His desire is for us to walk in step with His Spirit every moment of our day. He has a perfect plan, which will unfold for us as we patiently obey His Word (Ephesians 2:10).

Prayer:

Father God, You intended for us to enjoy Paradise from the beginning of time. When sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, we lost the benefits of living in Your presence. Bereft, we comb the earth looking for the fulfillment, which only You can supply.

Once we come to Christ, You restore our link to You and You will also restore to us the blessings of Paradise in eternity. In the meantime, You bless us with Your presence, make all things new and lead us by Your Spirit as You give us the desire and the power to walk in Your Salvation and Sanctification (Philippians 2:12-13). 

Thought for the Day:

Once God convicts us of our sin, our lost condition and our need for a Savior, we accept His free gift of restoration through Christ's grace and by faith in His faithfulness.