The Spirit and Our Emotions, Part 2

Today we're talking about the spirit and our emotions. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Will you tell me how you do either one without emotions? And these are commands. He commands us to weep.

He commands us to laugh and applaud. When our brothers and sisters hurt, we hurt. That's an emotion.

That's a feeling coming from the spirit of God. Facts never change, but our emotions fluctuate like crazy. So how do we make a prudent decision when the facts don't align with our emotions and when our personal instincts seem to defy common sense?

Are there occasions when our feelings take priority over the facts? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues a message that started last time. This is a one-part series on the Holy Spirit called Flying Closer to the Flame. So if you're having trouble discerning whether God may be trying to get your attention through your feelings, there's help ahead. Man was given a mind to know God.

Man was given a heart. He was given emotions to love God. God has a will. God has volition. God acts. God decides. God moves. God directs.

These are all activities of the will. And so when God created Adam in his own image, he gave Adam something he did not give animal, plant, fish, or foul life. He gave volition, the ability to make decisions, the ability to obey, to carry out God's plan.

See chapter 2 verse 16. The Lord God commanded the man. Now if there had not been a will within man, the command would have fallen flat.

It would have been a futile statement. But he commanded the man. He addressed his intellect. He called upon his will and he said, from any tree of the garden, you may eat freely. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. God appealed to Adam's will in giving this command. Do not eat of this tree. You've got an entire garden to enjoy.

Enjoy all of it, but when you come to this particular growing tree, do not eat from it. Ultimately, Adam was to use his will to obey his God. Man has been given a mind to know God, emotions to love God, and a will to obey God.

My point, I think, is now obvious. We are not whole in the sense of complete in God, in our God-given personality, unless all three are present and at work in us and in our walk with Christ. We are people with intellect, people with wills, and people with emotions, all of which are part of being a whole person. I am certainly not the first to recognize the value of one's emotions.

All of us have known these things, we just perhaps haven't given ourselves permission to say them or to think them. Where the Spirit of God is obviously present, where he is doing his work of cleansing and convicting, where he is bringing joy and delight and praise, we know firsthand the experiences of revival. And there cannot be revival without emotions. There cannot be. Until somehow your will attaches itself to the feelings of your being, nothing will be changed in your heart, nothing deep, nothing lasting.

And I'll say the same for myself. All this leads us to some examples of God's creative work within us, what he made us like unto himself, and provides us with a reason to go into some of these God-given emotions. Now turn next to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

Do you do that? 2 Corinthians chapter 4. When you get there, hold your place and also observe 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I want to look at two verses side by side. 1 Corinthians 2 and 2 Corinthians 4.

2, 9 and 4, 6. I want to show you that God's work in salvation is directed to the heart, not just the mind. That when the Lord does a saving work in the life of the sinner, he addresses the heart of an individual.

2 Corinthians 4, 6. For God who said, light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shone in our emotions, in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. God's work of salvation is directed to the heart, as stated here.

Christianity is not just a cold, calculating decision of the mind. The heart is touched. In fact, 1 Corinthians 2, 9 states, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Interesting, isn't it? Entering into the heart, into the emotions, into the feelings of our being. These things that God has for us, those things haven't entered into the heart of the lost person, the one who is not redeemed, the one who is still walking about this earth as a sinner distant from God. Now you understand why so much is said in the scriptures regarding a hard heart, a dull heart, a calloused heart. Pharaoh had a hard heart, and in spite of all that happened, God never got to Pharaoh, not deeply, not in the realm of his deepest being.

Pharaoh remained hard of heart. It's all related to that seat of the emotions, just so much a part of our being. If you are saved, part of the reason that God got your attention and came into your life is that he touched your heart.

He softened your feelings toward him. It affected your emotions. But what about that list, that God-given list of emotions? I'll tell you, I started a list and I got to about 17 emotions set forth in scripture and I thought, we'll never get through that.

We'll have to have a midnight meal for us to get through this list. Let me just, if I may, just hit the high points, but let me leave you with a challenge. You do a study on the emotions in the New Testament. You will be amazed at the number of emotions God underscores, that he affects, that he touches, that he moves through, that he ignites, that he changes. You're in 2 Corinthians, so locate chapter 9 verses 6 and 7. 2 Corinthians 9, 6. Now I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully. He's using an illustration from the field, from the planting and reaping world. He's saying, if you sow lightly, you will have a light harvest. You sow abundantly, you will have a bountiful harvest. And then he turns it to the issue of giving. Just, he says, let each one of you do just as he has purposed in his heart.

Interesting. Not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Cheer, joy. God loves that when the heart is full of joy and generosity pours forth. He loves it when there is an inner joy at the thought and the opportunity of releasing one's treasure. The feeling of joy. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but, and the implication is, God has given us a spirit of power and love and discipline. These are emotions given by God. When he ignites our hearts, turns us from darkness to light, takes us from our reprobate lost estate and brings us into a relationship with him, having a position that is in Christ, meaning we will never be out of Christ, while in Christ he gives us a love for himself. He is pleased in the emotion of love. The affection of love.

You can write it down, turn if you wish, but I'll give you a list of these. 1 John 4, 19. We love him because he first loved us. Proverbs 1, 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, of the beginning of knowledge. There's fear, and God honors that feeling of fear, that awesome respect with a hatred for sin.

That's the kind of fear, not a fright of God, but an awesome respect for God, that is so great, sin has no place in my life, deserves no green light. Psalms, the last five Psalms begin with the same word, 146, 47, 48, 49, 50. Praise the Lord.

This is not an intellectual act based on facts. It is an emotional praising, extolling the living God. That's a feeling of adoration and worship. It's a feeling that God honors, and he in fact commands us to praise him. If you will look at Romans chapter 12, you'll see a whole list of emotions.

Turn there. Romans 12, 9, down through about 17 or 18. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Look at this one, verse 10, in case you think love is just an academic agape, just seeking the highest good of another person, look at the affection of verse 10. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, philos love. Be devoted to one another in affection.

Give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence. Look at the next, fervent in spirit, passionate. That's a feeling, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saint, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and curse not. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

Will you tell me how you do either one without emotions? And these are commands. He commands us to weep.

He commands us to laugh and applaud. When our brothers and sisters hurt, we hurt. That's an emotion. That's a feeling coming from the Spirit of God.

He breaks us. I hope she won't mind. My wife and I were in Australia together, and we got word that a couple of her closest friends had been cut down. One was on her last fight with cancer, and the other had had a massive stroke. And I watched my wife as she read this, and she broke with tears. A piece of paper coming all the way to Australia that told a brief account of two good friends, and she just cried. I took her in my arms, and I held her as the Spirit of God hovered over her emotions while her heart was broken. She was miles away, unable to be there, to touch, to talk to, to stroke the hair of, to embrace her friends. She was weeping with those who weep. That is from the Spirit of God. We're in Romans.

I can't go to the next until I just deal directly with 17 and 18 because it's so pertinent today. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. If you have a license plate that reads, I don't get mad, I get even, take it off.

Take off the border and throw it away. More importantly, get rid of that attitude. It is not of God. Getting even is not of God. Even though we all have in common the same thing, someone we can blame for wrongdoing, the response is not getting evil, getting even. Respect what is right in the sight of all. Look at verse 18.

I love this. If possible, so far as it depends on you, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. You know what peace is? An emotion. Do you know that that's one of the ways you know the will of God? You have peace. Your heart is flooded with peace.

You're struggling with God's will. You can't rest. You can't sleep. You stare at the ceiling finally in exhaustion.

You drop off and you're asleep for an hour, hour and a half, and you wake up suddenly the Spirit of God in his mysterious and miraculous way floods you with an answer that is as clear as a bell. You don't hear voices. You don't see ceiling writing. You don't see sky writing.

You don't see cloud formations. You just sense in your heart that you ought to do this and not that. I've had that experience a number of times, and it was a clear statement of God's directing. Of course I had sought his word. Of course I had sought the counsel of people I respect, but nothing settled it until there came that flood of assurance, and when I had it, I never looked back. I did it, and I've never regretted it on those number of occasions. Here he's talking about a sense of peace that is brought about by reconciliation.

As much as it depends on you, do your best to get along with each other, to be at peace. Never take your own revenge, but leave room for the wrath of God. I heard a radio preacher years ago when I was just a teenager. I was driving across south Texas, and this radio station came in. He was apparently being really attacked by his critics, and so he was talking to them on the radio, just letting everybody else listen in, and he said, I just want you to know I'm not going to try to get even, but I am going to tell God on you.

I thought, that's a pretty good way to do it. In fact, he said, I'm just going to say, God, sick them. In his country manner, that was his way of saying, it's God's concern more than it is mine. I'm going to tell God on you.

By the way, being annoyed with someone else, let me show you how that can be from the Spirit of God. Look at Acts 17. Suddenly you're grabbing your Bible, aren't you? Acts chapter 17. Look at Acts 17, 16.

Here's another feeling. Paul is in Athens. He has just been busy about the work of evangelism in Europe, and when he comes down into Greece, he's waiting for his friends, Silas and Timothy at Athens, and please observe in verse 16, while he was waiting for them, his spirit was being provoked within him, as he was beholding the city full of idols.

It was said in those days there were more idols in Athens than there were people. Imagine that. And it provoked him. That's an emotion. Deep within his soul, he was burdened about the condition of that city. God gave the feeling to him.

Look at chapter 19, verse 17. It's another example of God-given feelings. This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks who lived in Ephesus, 1917, and fear fell upon them all. That's from God, because the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Many of those who had believed kept coming, and please observe the fruit of fear. They were confessing and disclosing their practices.

Many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of all, and they counted up the price of them and founded 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. Here is a feeling of fear directed from God, so much so that their secret lives were being confessed.

Their practices were being exposed. Ever been in a revival like that? I've seen that happen. I've seen people unable to keep it to themselves.

I've seen groups where the Spirit of God is igniting the presence of his cleansing work, and people just come out with their secret sins. It is from the work of the Spirit in the emotions of a person, so that here fear brings about that sense of confession. How helpful such emotions can be. By the way, if you have ever been around a person who has suffered an accident or a stroke or some kind of disease that has, I'll use the amateur term because I'm not medically trained, that has deadened the emotional part of the brain, you know what I'm talking about.

That person becomes flat. He has an ability or she has an ability to recognize, to talk about events, dates, even with memory, but there aren't feelings. One young man that I'm thinking of lives not far away from us told me one afternoon of the death of his father, and he told me without any feelings because the brain damage that suffered, that he has suffered from this horrible car accident that has stolen from his brain his emotions.

It left him with the ability to talk but the inability to feel. And his comment to me was, my dad died today. And I was working in my driveway and I stopped and I looked at him and I said, what did you say? My dad died today. My dad died. My dad died this afternoon. My dad died. And I put my arms around him and his arms were at his side and I'm sure he must have wondered why I would do that.

In fact, he kind of stiffened and we've known each other since he was a little boy, just to play with our son, Kurt. And when he talked about the death of his father, I thought, isn't that something there? I got tears in my eyes when I thought of the death of his father, but he had no tears, no emotions. And I thought, how valuable, how whole it makes us to have feelings, to express feelings. My heart groans for you who have been in such constraint with your feelings. You have been raised not to let them out, not to let them show.

And I can guarantee you it's taken a toll on your home and family, certainly on the rearing of your children. Feelings are so much a part of this. They're not everything, but they're apart.

Just as just as facts aren't everything, but they're certainly apart. We're midway through a message from Chuck Swindoll about the spirit and our emotions. And please keep listening because there's much more that Chuck wants to address on this important topic. You're listening to the daily program known as Insight for Living. To learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit us online at insightworld.org. The free resources we offer, along with this daily program, are made possible through the voluntary contributions of people like you. When you give, your gift is channeled directly toward providing Chuck's Bible teaching for others so they can benefit just as you have. For example, I thought you'd be encouraged to hear these following comments. One person said, insight for living is a calming oasis. Thank you for allowing me to better see myself in God's word. He still has affection for me and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. Another note said this.

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