It’s long been said that women are more emotional than men, and I’m not so sure that’s true. As someone that’s been married for many years, I believe men are equally as emotional as women, but expressing those emotions is another story altogether. More likely than not, men are taught to hide their emotions and hold them inside. Many of them do this, and it drives a lot of women nuts. In our significant relationships, and with others as well, our dependence on emotions is a societal norm. It’s now entrenched in the way we make choices and decisions, and even in how we respond to life. If we wake up in the morning feeling all bushy-tailed and bright eyed, we determine that it’s going to be a good day, but if the opposite is true, and we feel lousy, we allow that feeling to dictate our entire day. We tailor our expectations on emotional queues and responses, and this can make life and relationships quite the rollercoaster.
Our emotions help us tremendously in life. They help to preserve us, keep us from danger, and they also help to enrich our existences, but God didn’t create them to govern our lives. They are not to have authority in our choices and decisions, only Jesus Christ deserves that position. Fear, doubt, or worry were not a part of life in the Garden of Eden. Those heavies didn’t enter the picture until the devil brought sin on the scene. God’s original intention and Will is to be our Protector, Provider, and Guide through life. He never intended us to depend on fear or worry to navigate the kind of existence that He wants us to have.
As a matter of truth, Philippians 4:6(NLT) tells us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” This is a tremendous verse! It conveys the proper attitude we should have in life. It also lets us know that “No worries” is the kind of faith relationship that we must have with God.
The first man, Adam, sinned against our Heavenly Father, and everyone after Adam sinned as well. Because of sin, Adam and Eve were banned from the Garden of Eden. They lost their holiness and died a spiritual death, but through Jesus Christ, God restored what Adam lost. 1Corinthians 15:45(NLT) says, “The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit.” God created us in an atmosphere of His perfect love. He didn’t want robots, He wanted children made in His own image. God is love, and He made it possible through Jesus Christ for us to love Him totally and completely, without fear or any of its cousins.
2Timothy 1:7(NLT) declares, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” There are certain emotions and feelings that God did not give us. They were not produced from His realm of love, power, joy, peace, perfection, and light. Some of the emotions we feel come from a place of darkness, but God only wants us to live in His goodness, blessings, and fruitfulness. The choice between the two, light and darkness, is ever before us. We must be clear that God didn’t put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in another location. It was right there in the Garden of Eden, along with the Tree of Life. He showed us very clearly that love provides a choice. Love does not restrain us or put us in bondage. God’s love sets us free. We are free to make the choices that elevate us in heavenly treasures, or those that keep us held back and blocked from the blessings we desire most.
In the Old Testament, God told His people in Deuteronomy 30:15-18(NIV), “15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Life on earth contains these two realms, one Godly and full of life and prosperity, and the other is darkness and full of death and destruction. God tells us to choose life, and this means that we make a choice to abide in Him and the realm of His goodness. This way of love, light, and life isn’t dependent on how you feel. It’s dependent on the truth of who God has made you in Christ. God doesn’t tell us in His Word to feel courageous; He tells us to BE courageous. He doesn’t tell us to feel love; He commands us to BE love, because love is who we are. The feeling of love is too small a container to hold the eternal and unmatched wealth of all we are in Christ. So, our relationship with God isn’t dependent on our feelings from one day to the next, it’s dependent on God’s love for us and the reality of the salvation He’s made available to all who will accept it.
If we choose to abide in the emotional realm where we allow our own hearts to govern us, we are in trouble indeed. It’s common to receive the well-meaning advice, “always follow your heart.” Well, God tells us in Jeremiah 17:9(NIV), “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Our hearts are fickle. We’re hot for God one day, and cold the next. So, don’t follow your heart, follow God. Obey His Word because this is the key to living a more than abundant life.
Acts 17:28 declares, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” Because of Christ, we are in God. He is the Giver of life and we can’t do anything unless He makes it possible. So, we must recognize that as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and children of God, feelings are not a guarantee of truth; faith is. It’s our faith in God that matters most to Him. Hebrews 11:6(NLT) tells us, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” Don’t allow emotions of fear and doubt to rob you of the blessings of God. Trust Him with your whole heart and have faith that He is who He says He is, and He will do what He said in His Word He will do. God is always with you and your hope in Him cannot fail. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
“Your Relationship with God Isn’t Dependent on Feelings”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.