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.

Going Crazy!

 

Have you ever felt like you were going crazy? Nothing makes sense in your life. You have no direction. You are squeezed into a mold where you do not fit. 

There is a war going on in your mind...like there is a whole crowd of people up there arguing! I have a simple explanation, and an even simpler solution. Our mind is the battleground where Satan wars against us.

Our soul includes our mind, will and emotions. Our mind affects every part of us, including our physical well-being. The imagination is where Satan likes to play. 

He perverts the truth and comes up with all sorts of lies, which, unbelievably, we accept as truth! Then they affect us adversely for the rest of our life.  ( www.theophostic.com )

We live in this world, yet we do not wage war in the natural realm. Our weapons are not of this world. God gives us His divine power to demolish every spiritual stronghold we encounter. 

We can take authority over every haughty lie, which rises up against God's spiritual truth and against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5).

God gave us divinely powered weapons to demolish all of Satan’s strongholds. We do this by taking every thought captive and having the mind of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5). 

The Holy Spirit’s priority is helping us to know and to do the will of God in His power (Philippians 2:12-13). He does this by transforming our mind to the mind of Christ (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18).

Prayer:

Father God, Satan really refined his art of deception over the years. However, Your Spirit of truth abiding in us, guides us to Your truth. When we surrender to You, our God of peace in us, there is no more lunacy warring in our mind. Now we can stand against the devil's wiles, which he shoots at us as fiery darts (Ephesians 6:11,16; John 16:13). 

You sent Your Holy Spirit in Jesus' name to teach us everything we need to know and to remind us of what we read in Your Word (John 14:26-27). You give us victory over the evil one through the power of Christ in us (Colossians 1:27). In Jesus' name, we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Your Word (2 Corinthians 10: 3-5).

Thought for the Day:

Do not conform your thoughts to the pattern of this world or Satan's lies, but allow God's Spirit to renew your mind to know the perfect will of God. - Romans 12:2