The Biblical Heart Part 5

The Biblical Heart Part 5

By Wendy Wood

This is part 5 of a series on the biblical heart. Previously we looked at the components that make up the biblical heart including thoughts, emotions, desires, and the will. This blog will focus specifically on emotions.

The culture that we live in gives us messages about emotions that are contrary to Scripture. We often hear “Follow your heart”. This idea tells us that we should live by our feelings. That is something makes us happy or if we have positive emotions about something, we should pursue it and if something feels negative because it is difficult or something we don’t want, we should avoid it. But the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. We should not follow our hearts! Rather, we need to guard our hearts as Proverbs 4:23 says.  

Our emotions are strong and quick to respond to our circumstances, however, we cannot trust our emotions. Our emotions do not accurately reflect truth because our emotions are affected by our sin nature and our sinful desires. Our emotions reflect our judgment on a situation or circumstance. But our judgment may or may not be right. Instead of responding to our emotions, we need to go to God’s Word and see what His Truth says about the situation.  

We have emotions because we are made in God’s image. When God created humans in Genesis 1:26 and said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” part of that design was for us to experience emotions. Some of our emotions we experience as positive feelings - like happiness and excitement. And some of our emotions we experience as negative feelings - like sadness, fear, or anger. All of our emotions can be helpful and good - because they are from God and God declared His creation good.  But, our emotions are affected by the fall into sin. Every aspect of our lives is impacted and changed by sin and emotions are definitely one aspect of that.

Let’s go to some scripture to see emotions. We will start with Jesus’s emotions.

In Luke 10:21 we see Jesus happy

        “In that same hour He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children”

Jesus is happy over the Father revealing himself to those who are open to Him. He is rejoicing in the will of His Father so His emotions are holy and right.

 In John 11:33-35 we see Jesus sad 

       “ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.”

First we see Jesus sad. When He sees Mary’s tears and feels the loss of his good friend, Lazarus, He is sad. He weeps with his friends because He sees how hurt they are.  His sadness is in response to his compassion for others and this is a good and right response.

In Mark 3:5 we see Jesus angry at the sin in the hearts of man

        “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man “stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored.”

Jesus is angry at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and their lack of compassion for a crippled man. His anger moves him to act in a way that benefits others - he heals the man.

Mark 14:34 we see Jesus sorrowful and sad

        “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death”

Jesus was sorrowful to the point of death. He did not want to suffer.  In fact, He asked His Father  to remove the suffering from Him 3 times. But, he did not “obey” his feelings or He would have run away and hid so that He could not be found. He submitted to God and God’s will and went to the cross.

We learn from Jesus that emotions are good. Jesus felt the array of emotions that we feel but those emotions were always rooted in truth and upholding God’s glory.   Emotions are not sinful. They are part of the attributes of God. The problem is that our emotions can lead us to sin if we do not stop and think truth.

Let’s look at an example from scripture.

We know the disciple Peter was an emotional guy and he responded quickly to how he was feeling.

Matthew 16:21-23

“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Peter is fearful, angry, and sad at the thought of Jesus dying. Peter immediately judges this situation to be bad and wrong. He doesn’t want his friend, Jesus, to suffer so his interpretation of the event is extremely negative. But, Peter does not know the whole situation. His emotions are based on his fear of being alone, his fear of Jesus suffering, his fear of losing his leader. Instead of looking to Jesus for truth and understanding, He reacts out of his fear, anger, and sadness and sins. He responds with his negative judgment of the situation and sinfully wants his will to be done over God’s will. Jesus calls him “Satan” meaning that Peter’s plan would deny God and His plan of redemption for saving people from sin.

Just because you have a strong emotion does not mean you have to obey it.  

We need to stop and think truth before responding. It may be helpful to think about your emotions as a warning light on the dashboard of your car. When the “check engine” light comes on, you do not want to just keep driving and ignore it. That warning light tells you something is wrong deep inside your car. You need to stop, check the manual, and call a mechanic to help you figure out the truth of what is wrong with your car. We should respond to strong emotions like a warning light. Stop and evaluate what is going on in your heart based on the truth of God’s Word. Ask God to search your heart and help you understand where your emotions are out of line with His will. Call on God to help you respond to the situation in a way that honors and glorifies Him.

Another way to think about emotions is to think of a train. In this first example, the emotion car is the engine and is the driving force. This is a person who is living and responding based on their emotions. Like Peter in the example, when this person experiences an emotion, they quickly react to the situation without examining their desires and thinking based on God’s word. These actions are usually sinful responses because they are based on feeling not truth. This person wants to feel good and acts in a way that will alleviate a negative emotion or perpetuate a positive emotion. Their interpretation of the event is about personal comfort and about what they want. The thoughts going through their head are “after-thoughts”. They haven’t checked to see if they are speaking truth to themselves from God’s word. We are always thinking but not often aware of our thoughts. Thoughts about doubting God’s care and provision lead to anxiety. Thoughts about doubting God’s sovereignty lead to fear. Allowing our thoughts to trail behind neglects God’s command to “meditate on His word day and night” and to “hide His word in our hearts.” Throughout any given day, you may experience sadness, fear, anxiety and anger and your life is going in different directions throughout the day.

If you are quick to respond out of those emotions, like Peter, you will react sinfully and your train, or life, will veer off track from God’s word. It may feel like a roller coaster ride or a train derailment.  You will experience conflict and troubled relationships. You may explode with anger or clam up in anger and remain silent. Both responses are sinful.  You may feel happy about something that makes you feel good, but it may be something sinful that you are pursuing for pleasure. You may experience anxiety and sinfully respond to others or allow your thoughts to be consumed with “what if” scenarios rather than going to God in prayer and trusting Him. If you are reacting to emotions, your life will be constantly swinging from one emotion to the next. This is an exhausting way to live.

However, if your life is driven by thinking truth - of going to scripture to evaluate your circumstances through the lens of absolute truth, your life (or train) will be on a straight path.  

Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord will stand forever.”

Psalm 19 says “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple,  the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

We can trust God’s word to always keep us on track. His Word is perfect, sure and right.

When we experience an emotion, we need to stop and think about what God’s word says is true and go to God in prayer and dependence on Him to help us respond well.  Your emotions are reflecting your perspective on a situation. There are times to be sad and angry in a fallen world affected by sin and evil. There are times to be happy and celebrate life on this earth. Emotions are not a reliable indicator of whether we are right in our thinking.

God’s word encourages us to think specifically about Him.

We are commanded to take our thoughts captive to Christ in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.

We are commanded to think about things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and praiseworthy in Philippians 4:8.

Colossians 3 tell us to set our minds on things above. 

When our lives, or trains, are driven by thinking the truth about God, we will not react, but we will more likely choose to act in a way that honors God. We willfully choose to act on God’s word as we think rightly about God, His attributes, His promises, and what He has done for us in Christ.

When we have acted obediently to God, we experience the joy of honoring God. There may be mixed emotions, as people may respond badly to our right action, but living to please God is always joyful and restful for our souls.

Let’s look at some people from scripture who chose to respond in a godly way when their circumstances surely brought strong emotions that could have led to a sinful response.

Genesis 22:1-2  “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”  And he said, “Here I am”.  He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

We can imagine how Abraham felt being told to kill the son he had waited years and years to be born. He must have been distressed. We can imagine the fear and confusion and anger he felt at the idea of killing his son.  Yet, we see obedience to God.

Genesis 22:3   says “So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.”  

Abraham chose to think about God and who He is.  Abraham could have reacted with anger or fear and run away.  But he took his thoughts captive to absolute truth and acted in a way that  pleased God.

Hebrews 11:19 tells us “He (Abraham)  considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.”

Abraham “considered”. He didn’t listen to his emotions. He stopped and thought deeply about God and His character and promises. And then acted in response to that truth.

Job is another example of someone in the bible who easily could have responded with strong emotions and sinned against God and others.

Job 1:13 - 22

13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

We can see how Job would be judging these circumstances as extremely negative. He must have been angry, fearful, sorrowful, and distressed beyond imagination. He did not know how or why any of this was happening. Surely he was confused. Yet, he chooses to set his mind on God. He reminds himself that God is the giver of all things and can also allow those things to be taken away. Job worships the God he loves and does not sin is his response.

When you judge your circumstances as negative and feel angry or anxious, sad or confused, worried or distressed, it is time to think truth about God’s character and His faithfulness to His promises. You may need to find some scriptures that specifically encourage you regarding your situation.  

When your boss is critical and angry, you may need to stop and think about:

Romans 8:28-29 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Setting your mind on the truth that God wants to use your boss in your life to transform you more into the likeness of Christ can encourage you to respond with gentleness and humility.

When your toddler or teenager is being difficult and you are tempted to respond in anger, you may need to stop and think about Job 42:2. “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted”. 

Your child is not thwarting or messing up God’s plan. You can trust God to use this situation to grow your dependence on Him as you go to Him in prayer and go to His word to seek wisdom. Loving a sovereign God can help you respond in a way that pleases Him even to a difficult situation knowing that this is God’s plan for you - to learn how to act like Christ in this circumstance.

When you lose your job or become ill, you may need to stop and think about

Philippians 4:4-7  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” You can have peace knowing that God hears your prayers, that His peace will fill you when you think about God’s love and grace and salvation. You can have peace as you look to scriptures that remind you of God’s care and provision in your life.

When you are single and waiting for a spouse, when you are stuck in a job you don’t like and want something different, you may need to stop and think about

Romans 8:31-32 “What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” The truth is God loved you so much He planned for Jesus to suffer horribly for you. Will he stop you from getting what you need? Allow the truth that God gives us what we need to accomplish His work in our lives, even if we don’t get what we want, guide your responses.

In the heat of emotion, we need to stop and remember truth and then choose to act in obedience. As we act rightly, as we choose to please God, our emotions come in line with the peace and rest of having honored and glorified God.  

This was a lot of information. I encourage you to read it over again and get very familiar with the ways that the heart interacts with circumstances. Examine your own life.  Where do you tend to have strong emotions? When you react sinfully, what is the desire of your heart? What were you thinking in the moment you chose to sin?

The next blog we will discuss desires in depth.

We do what we do because we think what we think.  We think what we think because we want what we want.

We must understand our own desires and be able to help our counselees understand their desires as well.  

The Biblical Heart Part 4

The Biblical Heart (Part 4)

By Wendy Wood

So far in this blog series we have seen that the heart is the immaterial part of a person.  The heart is the control center from which every thought, intention, emotion, desire, motivation comes from and it is out of the heart that a person takes action.

Even for believers, the heart is deceitful and we can be fooled and blinded by our own sinful desires and motivations. 

This video will take an indepth look at how the heart functions as a person deals with situations and circumstances each day.

The heart basically consists of the thoughts, emotions, and desires of a person and then the will is the drive to act on those three components.  

Let’s look at a couple of examples from scripture that will help you understand how the emotions, thoughts, desires and will work together in all decisions and actions that we take. We will compare Eve’s heart and Jesus’ heart from two different passages in scripture.

Genesis 3:6  “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her.”

Let’s start with Eve’s emotions.  She is delighted by what she sees.  The fruit looks good to eat and Satan has promised her that she will gain special knowledge through eating it.  This produces the positive emotion of delight. 

We see Eve’s desires.  She wants to be wise like God.  She desires to get what she wants - to be wise like God and to rule herself.  

Eve’s thoughts are revealed by her emotions and desires.   She doesn’t stop to think about what she knows to be true of God - that He created her, that He loves her and is always with her, that He provides everything she needs.  Instead, she is led by her emotions and  she chooses to think God is withholding from her. She thinks God is preventing her from having something that would be good for her.  Her emotions lead her to think lies about God and His character.  

Part of her heart is her will.  The will is what moves us to action.   God has granted us a will so that we decide how we will respond to our circumstances. We have choices to make.  We do what we do because we want what we want.

When Eve decides to sin - to take the fruit and eat it - she shows her ruling desire is to get what she wants.  She loves herself more than she loves God at this moment because she wants what she wants - wisdom and self-rule, over what God wants - to be in perfect relationship with her and protect her from knowing evil. She allows her thinking to go wrong and her emotions regarding her sinful desire for autonomy to rule her as she chooses to sin.

Let’s compare that to Jesus’ response to His circumstance in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Mark 14:32-26  And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.”  And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.  And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

First - we see Jesus’ emotions.  He is sorrowful, even to death.  He is troubled.  Jesus is distressed.  He knows he is facing a horrible death of suffering.  He knows he is about to experience the sin of the world on him as he dies on the cross.  He is understandably emotionally upset.

We also see Jesus’ desire.  His desire is that God remove the cup of suffering from him.  Jesus knows the suffering will be great, and he has a desire to not suffer.  No one wants to suffer!

Jesus’ thoughts are that God is all powerful, and God can do anything.  Jesus is thinking the truth.  He knows God could remove the suffering from him.  

And we also see His ruling desire.  “Not what I will, but what you will”.  Jesus’ ruling desire is to obey God because of His love for His Father.  Jesus loves God whole-heartedly and submits his desire to God’s will.

Jesus’ will leads him to obedience.  He goes to the cross and takes all the pain and suffering of sin on himself.

Hebrews 12:2 tells us  “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Jesus’ emotions lead Him to God.  He goes to God in prayer when He experiences strong emotion and submits Himself to God’s will.  He recounts the truths about God.  He knows God is all powerful and can do anything - even take away the suffering on the cross, But,   He submits his emotions to truth, and submits His desire to God’s better plan.  He then acts obediently and ultimately experiences the “Joy set before Him” when He pleases His Father.

Let’s look at our hearts and how we respond to our situations.

Remember, the Heart is made up of our emotions, desires, thoughts and will.

We saw from Eve and Jesus that their responses to their circumstances revealed what they loved the most

Every response to temptation is an act of worship. 

Every choice that we make will either show we are worshiping God or worshiping self.  And it all comes from our heart.

Let’s review some specific scriptures that show all our words and actions come from the heart.   

Matthew 15:18-19 “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness and slander.”

This verse tells us that our thoughts, our actions and our words all come from within us.

Luke 6:43-45 is a similar teaching.  “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit.  For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.  The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Our words and actions reveal what we are worshiping.  We either produce good fruit or bad fruit depending on what we love the most.

We are often tempted to blame others for our sin.  We say things like “He made me so mad” or “I had to yell because that is the only way she listens.”  No one can make us sin.  Our sin comes from inside of us and our sin is always the result of worshiping ourselves rather than God.

Proverbs 4:23 “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

This verse again says that all of our responses flow from the heart, but adds the importance of guarding our hearts.  The world tells us to follow our hearts and to listen to our hearts.  God tells us to guard our hearts because our hearts are deceitful, as we saw with Eve.  We can easily deceive ourselves with our emotions and wrong thinking so we need to guard our hearts by always going back to God’s word for Truth.

We have decision making abilities. God has given us the ability to think and has provided us with Scripture and His Son so that we can respond in a way that pleases Him.

We make many decisions every day.  The decisions that we make, the responses we give to temptations, reveal what is in our heart.  We are either loving God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Or, we are loving ourselves.

God has created us with a purpose.  

2 Corinthians 5:9 says, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him”.  

Isaiah 43:7 says, “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made”.

We are alive and here on earth to please God and to glorify Him.  To glorify God means to give Him the worship and honor that He is due.  We are to live our lives in a way that shows the value and worth of God for who He is and what He has done for us in Christ.  Our goal should be to live in such a way, to respond to every temptation, by making decisions that please God and display His goodness.

Every day we make many responses to temptations.  Temptations to sin will always be around us while we are here on earth.  When we get to the point where we need to make a decision, we need to think about Luke 9:23

Luke 9:23 tells us “And He said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”.

We have wills that allow us to decide how we will respond.  We have formed habits in our responses, but at the point of justification, when we repent and surrender to Christ for the first time, we are given the Holy Spirit and His power within us to choose to please God.  We are set free from being slaves to sin and through the power of the Holy Spirit, are able to please God and become slaves to righteousness.  

So let’s look at Luke 9:23 again.  Jesus says twice, “if you want to come after me, or if you want to follow me” we must #1, deny ourselves and #2 take up our cross daily.

So what does it mean to “deny ourselves”?  We have “two selves” when we become believers.  We have the “old self” that we are to “put off” and we have the “new self” to “put on” that is made in the image of Christ in righteousness and holiness.  To deny ourselves is to have the “new self” deny the “old self”.  Since we have the Holy Spirit within us, we can choose to please God through depending on God to help us form new habits in our responses.   The new self can willfully choose to say “no” to selfish desires and say yes to God’s desires.  That is how we deny ourselves.

The second part is to take up our cross daily.  The cross was for the worst criminals in society.  The cross was for those who were guilty. Taking up our cross daily means that we see ourselves as standing before the judgment of God and we are guilty of breaking His moral law.  We agree with God’s assessment that we are guilty and know that we need God on a daily basis.  We turn to Christ in repentance and faith and no longer rely on ourselves but on Christ.  

The cross involves dying.  It means we choose to die to our sinful nature. We must die to our selfish desires and live every day for Christ and His glory.  

The cross involves suffering.  We must endure trials and hurts in this world but we can trust God that He is good and has a good plan for us to become more like Christ through the trials and hardships.   

Denying ourselves and taking up our cross daily type responses show an eternal perspective.  Choosing to please God is trusting that we have a God who rewards those who seek Him.  An eternal perspective keeps in mind that life on earth is short, we are just passing through life here on this earth until we die, and then real life begins where we will spend eternity in the presence of God.  Denying yourself and taking up your cross daily involves trusting that God is who He says He is and all His promises are true.  This is principle oriented living.  Instead of being ruled by emotions, we choose to think about God’s sacrifice for us in sending Jesus and out of love and gratitude, we want to live by God’s principles.

If we deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, we will ultimately please God.

This is HARD at first.  Denying ourselves and not responding as we are in the habit of doing, is hard.  However, as we continually work at this, as we depend on God’s Spirit,  as we pursue holiness and pleasing God, it becomes easier because we are transforming into being more like Christ.

The blessing of choosing this path is seen in Matthew 11:28-30

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Life becomes more peaceful and restful and joyful when we are pleasing God in our responses because that is how God created us and designed us to be. When we choose to please God, we are showing that our Ruling Desire is to do  God’s will above our own.  We are loving God from the heart.

However, we often do not deny ourselves when the decision point comes.  Our old selves, the deceitful desires within our hearts, lead us to sin.  This is the easy way to go.  It is our sinful nature and the way we are in the habit of responding.  When a temptation comes, we quickly respond based on our emotions, our wrong thinking, and our desires and choose to act selfishly. We want what we want, and are willing to sin to get it.  We love ourselves more than we love God.  This is a temporal way of thinking and responding.  We get so caught up in our rights, our desires, our way, our needs, that we emphasize getting what we want right now.  We are focused on the present, and don’t give thought to the promises God has made for us in eternity.  This is a feeling oriented, short-sighted way to live.

Although this is the easy way to go, as we continue down that selfish path, we get further and further from God.  

Proverbs 13:15 says “Good sense wins favor, but the way of the treacherous is their ruin”   Simply put, our sin, our treachery, makes life hard.  We “ruin” life when we choose to worship ourselves.  We end up with broken relationships, anger, anxiety, depression, frustration and other “bad fruit” when we love ourselves more than God.

A few verses later in Proverbs 13:21 it says, “Disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good.”

God clearly shows us that choosing to sin is choosing to have a hard life.  We are not ever guaranteed easy circumstances, but if we choose to please God in our response, we have the peace and rest that comes from knowing we have honored God and our souls find rest in that.

Galatians 6:7-9 sums up this idea.  “Do not be deceived:  God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.  For the one who sows to  his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.  And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Choosing to please God leads to eternal life.

Choosing to please self leads to corruption and self destruction.

We have a will to choose how we respond.  You are not stuck in your old life if you are a believer and have surrendered your life to Christ.  You are a new creation and can choose to please God, whatever your circumstances may be.

Let’s look at some specific examples of a typical day.

Let’s say you are driving to work and another driver cuts you off in traffic.  You are tempted to sin at this point. 

You immediately feel the emotion of anger or frustration.  You think about how no one should do that to you.  You either forget about God or choose to think He is not interested in this situation.  Your desire is to be respected by other drivers, to have others put you ahead of themselves.  And as you honk your horn, think rude thoughts about the other driver, maybe even yell at them (even though they can’t hear you) - you worship yourself.  Your love for yourself becomes evident as you sin in response to this temptation.  Your selfish desire is your ruling desire and God’s will has been forgotten.

Or, if you are choosing to please God,  you still  feel the temptation to be angry and frustrated.  But you stop and think - “God loves me and cares about me.  He has promised to always be with me so He is here even now as I drive to work.  He is all powerful and sovereign.  He has chosen this commute for me and I can respond in a way that honors Him.”  You still desire for other drivers to be patient and respectful, but your ruling desire is to please God.  You tap your brakes and leave room for the other driver.  You set your mind on God and how He is patient with you and don’t let the negative thoughts fester in your head.  The choice to please God gives you peace in your soul and you can get to work and focus on more important things than a bad driver.

Here’s another example.    You arrive home and your spouse’s first words are complaining and grumbling about something you forgot to do.  If you are pleasing yourself, you immediately give in to  feeling hurt and angry.  You start thinking about all the times your spouse has failed to do what you asked.  God’s goodness and love and patience with you never enters your mind.  You desire a spouse who loves you and respects you and you set your mind to make that happen.  Your response is to complain right back.  You match your spouse’s tone of voice and an argument has begun.  You excuse your sin, blame your spouse, and spend the rest of the evening grumpy.  Your selfish desire has ruled you and you have not pleased God.

Or, you could choose to please God.   You still  feel the tug to be angry and hurt.  But you stop and think Truth.  “I am a sinner but I have an even greater Savior. God wants me to continually become more holy like His Son.   I can trust that God will use even this situation for my good to conform me to the image of Christ if I am humble and willing to trust Him.”  So you say, “You’re right.  I did forget to do that.  That must be very frustrating to you.  Will you please forgive me?  I’ll do that job right now.”  Or, it might be, “I don’t remember promising to do that job.  Did we talk about that?  I’m happy to do it, but could you please speak to me kindly and respectfully even if I forget to do something.”  Your desire to be loved and respected is in submission to God’s desire that we be gentle and kind, and you please God as you give a soft answer and turn away wrath.

Every response to temptation is an act of worship.  

Every choice that we make will either show we are worshiping God or worshiping self.  And it all comes from our heart - our emotions, our desires, our thoughts, and our will.

Our hearts are deceitful as we see in Jeremiah 17:9-10.  But God sees our hearts perfectly.  God encourages us to pray and ask Him to help us see where our hearts need changing. 

Psalm 139:23-24 says, 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!

    Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

    and lead me in the way everlasting!

What to Do When the Pain of Others Overwhelms You

By: Andrea Lee

Toxic empathy is disorienting. On one occasion, when my anguish over the suffering of others flooded out to a friend, she said, “Who died and gave you a Junior God badge?”

Gulp.

My emotional response to suffering in the lives of other people had unmoored me from biblical bearings. I was adrift in a sea of sorrow and was overwhelmed. Empathy is a good gift that can go terribly wrong: people with sensitive consciences, vivid imaginations, and caring hearts are often plunged from compassion to poisonous despair by the suffering of others. How does this happen and what can we do about it?

First, a word of clarification: this article is meant to give hope and balance to those who want to respond to suffering in a Christ-like way by highlighting a danger of empathy. In calling attention to this danger, I don’t want to minimize the calling believers have to demonstrate incredible compassion, patience, love, and wisdom to those who are struggling. We can be heartbroken for the suffering of others while praying with hope and clinging to the truth that God’s grace is sufficient for every trial.

Now, let’s cover some definitions and descriptions. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, empathy is “the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation.”[1] It’s as if you are experiencing the pain of another person yourself.[2] This idea of sharing the pain of another is certainly a biblical concept, although the Bible uses words like “compassion” and “sympathy.” Sympathy is the feeling of pity and grief for the plight of another, while compassion is being moved to action and kindness in order to relieve suffering. Jesus powerfully embodied heartfelt action in the face of pain. Jesus’ willingness to feel our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15) and His sorrow for our condition (Heb. 2:18) moved Him to act in kindness to relieve our greatest problem (Eph. 2:4).

The New Testament clearly charges followers of Christ to be tenderhearted. We are to “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15) and to “put on…compassionate hearts and kindness” (Col. 3:12). We have the example and power of Jesus, who is full of compassion and mercy (Matt. 9:36; 15:32). The conclusion we might draw is that the temptation for most believers is to care too little, not too much, when others suffer. But for some people, caring deeply takes them to a place of paralyzing despair.

What Does This Despair Feel Like?

When our empathy becomes suffocating, the pain is all we feel. We only see horror and brokenness in the world. As Joe Rigney, Professor at Bethlehem Bible says, destructive empathy is “a total immersion into the pain, sorrow, and suffering of the afflicted.” [3] There is a subtle twist in our thinking: “The more I’m overwhelmed by your pain, the more I really care,” or, “Unless I am undone by your suffering, I must not be compassionate.” Or even more insidious, “I refuse to experience peace or joy (the fruit of the Spirit) while you are suffering.”

To be clear, empathy is not the problem. The problem is the belief that we are best representing God by being overwhelmed by suffering. We are to “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15) and “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12). When we can’t, our emotions may be calling the shots more than our faith. Here’s the issue in a nutshell: “When we overidentify with our emotions, we begin to distort our perspective on reality.”[4] So instead of letting pain take over our entire spiritual landscape, we must keep our spiritual footing. Only by keeping the big picture in view can we help our hurting friends.

How Do We Keep Our Spiritual Footing in the Face of Suffering?

Let’s look at Paul’s experience in Romans 9. The Apostle is remarkably open about his deep empathy: he has “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart. He even wishes that he could exchange places with his Jewish brothers (Rom. 9:3). This is compassion, sympathy, and empathy of the highest order. Other people’s rebellion and rejection of God troubled him immensely. And yet, it did not immobilize him. Paul keeps God’s Word, God’s mercy, and God’s sovereignty firmly in view. By doing so, he is able to maintain his spiritual equilibrium in the flood of anguish he experiences.

God’s Word 

Romans 9:6 says, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” Paul is addressing what some people thought to be God’s failure to keep the promises He made to Israel. These people didn’t realize that the children of God are children of the promise, not children of the flesh (physical descendants of Abraham). The point for those struggling with toxic empathy is this: the aching in Paul’s heart did not cause him to minimize or sideline God’s Word. Paul refuses to let his grief claim his soul.[5] He sees God’s glory and purposes as bigger than the pain of sin and suffering, even when those he cares about deeply are the ones hurting.

God’s Mercy 

Paul goes on to talk about a difficult truth in Romans 9:6-12: God chooses not according to works, but because of His sovereign will. Paul proclaims how this truth highlights God’s mercy. In the swirl of empathic emotion, we are tempted to forget that God is merciful and just. Paul seems to shout, “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!” (Rom. 9:14). The paralyzing effect of toxic empathy often starts here. Without realizing it, we descend into a fog that insists God isn’t doing a very good job. This is where my friend’s quip about the Junior God badge comes in.

When we are wearing this badge, we think, “I could run the world better…This suffering is unbearable…It’s all up to me to fix this…It’s my responsibility to make this better NOW…How could a good God let this happen? How can I live in a world where things like this can happen?” We feel ready to cast judgment on the way God is running the world because the suffering overwhelms us. But God is not unjust! The Judge of all the Earth will do what is right (Gen. 18:25). In our turmoil, we forget that pain and suffering serve God’s glorious purposes. We forget that followers of Christ do not get what they deserve. (These are truths you must remember to keep your spiritual footing, not things you proclaim to your hurting friend.)

God’s Sovereignty

In his contemplation of the worst suffering a human can face (an eternity apart from God), Paul clings to God’s sovereignty. The words still shock my sensibilities when I read them: “But who are you, O Man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay?” (Rom. 9:20-21). Acknowledging God’s sovereignty will actually deepen our compassion, not lessen it, while at the same time keeping us focused on God’s perfect purposes. Toxic empathy says, “I am overcome by the suffering of others.” Godly empathy says, “I am burdened, and my heart is deeply affected by the trials of others. But God is so powerful that He uses even suffering to accomplish His glorious purposes. I can trust Him—with myself and with those near me.”

Ultimately, the emotions generated by empathy are meant to move us. We must run to the only One strong enough to carry the pain. Isaiah 53:3b calls our Savior “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” who “surely bore our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4). God Himself, in Jesus Christ, took on the pain and punishment we deserve for being rebels to His Kingship. We must cast our burdens (including the burden of our pain for others) onto the Lord Jesus, lest we sink beneath those burdens.

We must also move toward others in their pain. If we don’t know how to handle the deep emotions of empathy, we may distance ourselves from suffering. This is precisely the opposite response that Jesus intends His followers to have. We are to move toward others, not because we are sufficient to remedy their pain, but because we know the Savior can comfort them.

We can rest in the place Paul found his peace—in worship. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:33, 36).

Question for Reflection

What passages help you to keep your spiritual footing in the face of suffering?

[1] Cambridge University Press, “Empathy,” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/empathy, accessed January 7, 2020.

[2] Merriam Webster, “Empathy,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy, accessed January 6, 2020.

[3] Joe Rigney, “The Enticing Sin of Empathy,” Desiring God,  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-enticing-sin-of-empathy, accessed January 6, 2020.

[4] Alasdair Groves and Winston Smith, Untangling Emotions (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 140.

[5] Ibid., 141.

About the Author

Andrea Lee serves as a biblical counselor for women at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA. She has a Masters of Arts in Biblical Counseling from The Masters University. Andrea has been married to her husband, Darien, since 2006.

Posted at: https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2020/02/10/what-to-do-when-the-pain-of-others-overwhelms-you/

Engaging our emotions, engaging with God

Written By: Alasdair Groves

Emotions are tricky. Everyone has them. Everyone struggles with them. Many struggle with how they feel more than anything else in their lives. Then there is the sea of other people’s emotions in which all of us swim. I suspect most of us consider emotions to be more of a liability than an asset.

What does the Bible have to say about emotions? The Bible doesn’t talk about emotions quite the way we do. We’d like Romans to lay out a theology of emotions, or Proverbs to include a section beginning “Here are six ways to manage your feelings, seven to feel as you should…,” but they’re not there. However, Scripture frequently does exhort us to feel certain things and not to feel others. We are to consider our trials joy (James 1:2). We are to put off rage and bitterness (Eph. 4:31). We are to have compassion for each other (1 Peter 3:8). We are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength (Deut. 6:5).

I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on God’s call to us to have a whole array of emotional responses to his world, from awe-filled delight (e.g., Ps. 8) to vehement hatred (e.g., Ps. 139:21–23). How can we live up to this? Does God expect us to have perfect, instantaneous control over our emotions? No. God does not stand at a distance and command emotions we can never fully attain. Instead, he meets us with countless mercies, transforming our hearts and character, which always influences our emotions.

Throughout the Bible God continually encourages, comforts, convicts and reorients us. Instead of handing us a manual on emotional self-transformation, he patiently and tenderly invites us to simply come to him with all our feelings. This makes our emotions one of the premier opportunities to deepen our relationship with him!

Understand your emotions

If you are surprised to hear that God actually wants you to draw near to him when you feel like you are an emotional mess, remember this: the Bible views emotions as fundamentally good. How do I know this? Because we are image bearers of God and he has emotions. His joy, hate, wrath, compassion, jealousy and love are the model for ours.

We are more than computers cataloging facts. He made us both to “taste and see that the Lord is good” and to “hate what is evil.” He commands us to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn” because he is a God who is moved by his children (eg., Hosea 11:8), a God who commands feasts and celebrations in Israel’s law (e.g., Lev. 23), a God who weeps at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11).

God doesn’t call us to avoid or squash our emotions (as Christians often suppose). Neither does he call us to embrace them unconditionally (as our culture often urges). Rather, he calls us to engage them by bringing our emotions to him and to his people. I like the word engage because it doesn’t make a premature assumption about whether the emotion is right or wrong, or how it might need to change. Instead it highlights what the Bible highlights: our emotions (good and bad) are meant to reveal the countless ways we need God.

Our emotions invite us to see the world as God sees it—both broken and beautiful—rejoicing where he is redeeming it and yearning for the full redemption that is yet to come. Only in the safety of his strength and patience can we face our visceral reactions, name them honestly, and talk about them with God and others.

Bring your emotions to God

At this point, you might be wondering, “But what does it actually look like to bring our emotions to God?” Let me give you an example from a passage that has been especially powerful for me.

Look at Psalm 22:1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? Here is a man in deep distress. He is in trouble and groaning. Worse, he is also alone and abandoned. Stop for a moment and consider the nature and intensity of emotions he’d have to be experiencing to write something like that. Panicky fear. Deeply confusing disappointment. A shocking sense of betrayal. Tangible grief.

Now look at what this man does with these painful emotional experiences: he takes them to God. He is apparently free to engage God—with loud cries no less—even about being abandoned by God. He calls this God, from whom he feels so distant, “My God,” and speaks directly to him, not about him in the abstract. “Why have you forsaken… Why are you so far?”

Of course we know from other passages that God will never leave or forsake his people— the psalmist’s feelings in this moment are not the whole story. The psalmist knows that, too, because the psalm ends with an affirmation of God’s faithfulness. Yet this psalm and many like it come to us without a swarm of footnotes about how God hasn’t really abandoned us. And, importantly, this psalm doesn’t direct this person (or us) to ignore his feelings because they don’t reflect the truth about God. Instead, we are shown a path that forges endlessly toward God, even through the center of emotional storms.

God hears and cares

Like the psalmist, you can come to God with a raw heart and lay your burdens before him (Matt 11:28–30). He will receive you in your pain and walk with you. When your emotions feel overwhelming, turn toward God and put those feelings into words. You will be heard by the God who hears. And when you don’t have words, read Psalm 22 and ask God for help. Know that when you do, you will find your father in heaven feels great joy for the opportunity to embrace a child he loves.

Posted at: https://www.ccef.org/engaging-our-emotions-engaging-god/

How To Embrace Your Emotions Without Being Ruled by Them.

Winston Smith

Growing up on a large lake, I developed a great appreciation for the power of the wind. I enjoyed many summer days sailing with friends on the family sailboat. When the weather was fair and there was a steady wind, it made for a delightful day. The wind carried you wherever you liked and you could just enjoy the ride. But on some hot summer afternoons a thunderstorm could blow up quickly. If you were too far out on the lake, it meant real trouble. Chaotic winds would stir up the waves, swing the boom wildly, and even threaten to capsize the boat.

Emotions can seem as unpredictable as the wind—sometimes gentle and comforting, sometimes stormy and threatening, and apparently beyond your control. But we don’t have to live at the mercy of our emotions. Understanding why God gave them to us, and how they work, can help us engage them without being ruled by them. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. ACCEPT YOUR EMOTIONS AS A GIFT FROM GOD.

First, accept your emotions as part of your makeup as an image bearer of God. One of the things that Scripture teaches us about our emotions is how deeply they are rooted in what we value. When we encounter things we consider “good”, we experience emotions that feel good. For example, the blessings of life engender in us feelings like happiness, joy, and contentment. When we encounter things that we consider “bad”, we experience emotions that feel bad—like sadness, grief, and anger. Jesus himself exemplified this. When He encountered the hard hearts and oppression, He became angry (Mark 3:5). When He encountered death and loss, He grieved (John 11:35). When He faced torture and death, He agonized (Luke 22:44).

In a sense then, the more our hearts and values are aligned with God’s, the more we will experience emotions that reflect God’s perspective on what’s happening in and around us. The more we mature into the image of Christ, the more our encounters with the truly good will engender positive emotions. Likewise, our encounters with the truly bad will engender even more negative emotions.

This is important to understand because Christians sometimes have the faulty view that the more we know, trust, and love God, the less we experience negative emotions. While it is true that our faith can keep us from being ruled by our emotions, it doesn’t mean that we don’t feel negative things or live in a fixed state of emotional bliss. Christians who don’t understand this sometimes suffer anxiety, frustration, and shame about their emotions. Denying or hiding from negative emotions only complicates matters. When you don’t have the words to describe how you feel, turn to the Bible to find them.

2. LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONS AND NAME THEM.

Second, it’s important to develop emotional language and name your emotions. Have you ever noticed how sometimes you feel a little better after sharing frustrations or fears with a trusted friend? The actual circumstances that are bothering you may not have changed a bit. Your friend may not have done anything other than listen carefully and share their care and concern, and yet, your struggle is not as much of a burden as it was just a few minutes earlier. There are probably lots of reasons for that, but at a fundamental level, being able to name your emotions and experiences enabled you to entrust them to another who bore the burden with you. In other words, being able to name your emotions helped you to connect with another and be loved.

This can be very hard to do. Our emotions, especially the more painful ones, are often messy and complicated. We aren’t necessarily sure exactly what we are feeling, just that it feels awful. The Bible provides some help. It is full of songs, poems, and narratives that describe the full range of human experience in all of its complicated messiness. Take the Psalms for example. There you will find thankfulness and joy, “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14); frustration and anger, “Be not silent, O God of my praise! For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues” (Psalm 109:1-2); even utter despair, “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness” (Psalm 88:18).

When you don’t have the words to describe how you feel, turn to the Bible to find them. Allow words inspired by the Holy Spirit to become your words. As you do, you are beginning the process of entrusting them to another. First and foremost, you are beginning to entrust them to God by mouthing His words after Him, but learning the vocabulary of emotions can begin to help you share them wisely with trusted others as well.

3. DISCERN HOW EMOTIONS INVITE YOU TO GROW IN LOVE.

As God’s image bearers we were created to mature into Christ’s likeness, which is love itself (1st John 3:1-16), and our emotions can actually help us to grow in love. This can happen in many ways. For example, as we are more honest and engaged with our emotions we may notice a “gap” between how the Bible suggests we should feel and how we actually feel. For example, Paul writes that, as an expression of genuine love, Christians should, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). In other words, love requires us to enter into the emotional experience of those we love. When you experience a “gap”, say you are untouched by the other’s suffering or you experience their happiness as jealousy, then you know that your emotions are not being shaped by love, but something else.

Or perhaps you wrestle with particularly strong negative emotions. For example, say you have an anxiety problem. At times you seem to worry about everything. Or perhaps your fear is paralyzing and prevents you from living a full life. There are all kinds of techniques that you can learn to help you engage your fear and perhaps become desensitized to it, and that’s fine. But realize that your fear may also suggest a need to receive more deeply God’s care and love for you. The Bible records many examples of His people’s fear, to which He often reminds them that though they may suffer, He is with them and cares for them. Consider Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Again, knowing God’s love doesn’t totally remove negative emotions, but it can keep them from controlling you and keep you grounded and able to learn and grow.

Navigating our emotions can be tricky, but it’s easier if you continually review a few basics: First, remember—your emotions are part of how God made you to reflect His image and His values. You and emotions go together just like sailboats and wind are meant to go together. You don’t want your boat to be sunk by the wind, but without the wind you aren’t going anywhere. Second, learn the language of emotions. You might say that learning the vocabulary of emotions is like learning how to sail with a crew. To sail safely you need to be able to say, “Watch out for the boom!” or “We’re taking on water! Grab a bucket!” And it makes sailing much nicer when you can say, “Isn’t this a lovely day. I’m glad we’re here together.” Finally, knowing that emotions are meant to help us to grow in loving and knowing God’s love is like having a compass heading. Even when the winds make sailing hard, if you know where you are trying to go, you’ll know how to navigate them to get there.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/how-to-embrace-your-emotions-without-being-ruled-by-them/

Grumbling: A Family Tradition

David McLemore 

So, how’s your quarantine going?

Isn’t it wonderful? We can’t go anywhere. We can’t do anything. All our plans are canceled. Maybe you can work from home like me, but I find it just makes my house unbearable at times. My kids are stir-crazy and I’m ready to get back to normal.

Normal. Remember those good old days? Like when we went to restaurants and sporting events and concerts. We had all we needed. But now? Look at us now. We’re basically prisoners! And for what? A virus? Come on!

Whose fault is this anyway? Surely, “they” could’ve stopped this. It didn’t have to be this bad. But they’re a bunch of failures. We always knew it, didn’t we? Can’t get anything right on a normal day, and when crisis knocks on the door, well, there goes our lives.

A LONG LINE OF GRUMBLERS

If walls could talk, would they, like a child, repeat the echoes of your grumbling? Mine would. I’m an expert grumbler. It’s too cold in winter and too hot in summer. The food was good but the service was slow. The night was long but sleep was short. Nothing is ever just right. Has it ever been? Reading the Bible, it appears my disposition isn’t mine alone. We come from a long line of grumblers.

Perhaps nowhere in the Bible is this clearer than in the story of Israel’s wanderings during the Exodus from Egypt. While isolated in the desert, God’s people quarreled with Moses because there was no water to drink—admittedly a big problem in the middle of the desert (Ex. 17:1–2). Moses responded by asking, “‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses” (Ex. 17:3).

This was hardly their first go at grumbling. By chapter 17, they’ve been at it for a solid two months as they entered the Desert of Sin (Ex. 15:24; 16:2, 7–9, 12). Yes, God led them out of slavery in Egypt but their nomadic desert life didn’t satisfy their appetites. Oh, remember the meat pots and fullness of bread in Egypt! Better to die there with full bellies and no freedoms than in deliverance with empty stomachs! Does God know what he’s doing?

The middle chapters of Exodus (15–17) are a master class in the art of grumbling. Paul said, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Rom. 15:4). But rather than submitting to the tutelage, I find my proverbial stomach too empty. I place myself among the frustrated Israelites, joining their ranks instead of learning their lessons. Who can blame me? It’s a family tradition.

DO ALL THINGS WITHOUT GRUMBLING

As the pages turn from the Old to New Testament, the family line and its tendencies don’t appear to improve very much. We don’t have the contextual details as we do with our desert-dwelling ancestors, but we find the Apostle Paul confronting what must have been a similar situation in the Philippian church. “Do all things without grumbling,” he says (Phil. 2:14).

Were they hungry and thirsty too? Did they find God less than who he promised to be?

I hear Paul’s words and I want to obey. I really do. The problem is, it’s hard. Some people seem never to have had a bad day. I wonder if I’ve ever had a good one. And these days of quarantine aren’t helping.

Every hour brings worse news than before. Sure, I have my moments of peace and contentment. But in all things? What do you mean by all, Paul?

Maybe it’ll help to define the word grumbling.

NO COMPLAINT OR DISPUTE

Grumbling must be distinct from complaint. Complaint feels too formal. I never go that far. I’m not filling out a form or sending an email. I’m not bringing this before the elders or anything. I’m just voicing my displeasure—informally and off the cuff, you know? No big deal, really. It’ll pass.

A complaint might get me somewhere, but I’m not looking for a handout. I’m not the kind of person who wants to speak to the manager. I just hope the waiter overhears me wondering where he is. I hope he sees my face as I take that first bite of less-than-expected taste. I just hope the two-star Facebook review I posted is filled with agreeing comments. Maybe things will start to change then, but probably not.

The real difference, in my opinion, lies here: a complaint gets you something you feel cheated out of, but that’s not my angle. I’d much rather let everyone know it’s their general failure in life that’s caused my displeasure. You know, like God leading a people into the desert with a meek leader like Moses and a severe lack of basic provisions like food and water. How can someone like that be trusted in trying times?

So maybe the lesson is this: to complain is to ask God why he’s not giving water in the desert and plead for him to provide; to grumble is to say there’s not water because God doesn’t care. The first seeks to obtain something. The other seeks only to destroy.

In Philippians 2:14, Paul commands the people not to grumble but also not to dispute. Grumbling rarely disputes anyone’s decisions. It doesn’t rise that high. It lays low in the water, like the roar of a wave that comes crashing all around. It might get you wet, which can be annoying, and it has enough salt and sand to rub you the wrong way, but the grumble isn’t there to argue. Arguing requires facts and reasoning. Grumbles don’t. The grumble grows out of emotions. The catalyst is the way one feels, which influences the way one thinks. The grumble doesn’t want to take anyone to court; it just wants everything fixed—now.

ACCUSATION

The problem, however, is that the grumble does inevitably take someone to court. The Israelites’ grumbling soon rose to Moses and then to God. How did God hear grumblings? The murmur was louder than they thought.

God got involved, which seemed to be an overreaction, really. Grumblings wither and fade. Once it’s off the chest it’s like mist in the morning, right? But Moses took it to God. He asked, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me” (Ex. 17:5). God’s answer was weighty. “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb” (Ex. 17:5–6a). God received their grumbling as an accusation against himself. He stood trial.

I think I’m beginning to see the lesson. Though it doesn’t look like it initially, grumbling is accusation. The Israelites weren’t merely venting their frustrations. They were accusing God of not being a provider. In fact, they were saying he was worse than Pharaoh. He must not have thought it through. A million people in the middle of the desert. “Yeah, God. Great idea.”

Their grumbling was a viral event, not quarantined to a small few. It was airborne and highly contagious. If I jumped in the DeLorean and headed back to that ancient and sandy land, I wouldn’t hear the story of God’s great rescue but the story of God’s great scandal: desert life without water. If I knew nothing of their history, I might be prone to think Egypt was a land of Eden and Pharaoh a king of kings.

The people had a point. What good is emancipation if you die a few weeks later with a parched tongue and cracked lips? They looked at their life and could see only the grim circumstances staring back at them. They forgot the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and the manna from heaven. They forgot their Rescuer, Deliverer, and Redeemer. The roar of their grumbling drowned out the song of their Savior. God had done mighty things before, but they disbelieved he could do them again. Rather than the path God was taking them, all they saw were walls. And those walls echoed to and fro throughout the land.

WATER FROM THE ROCK

God heard their grumbling, and he stood on the rock before them. Then he told Moses, “You shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink” (Ex. 17:6).

In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul looks back at this event and makes the shocking statement that Christ was the Rock. The water the people drank didn’t come from nowhere. It came from the judgment of God in Christ. Moses didn’t strike an inanimate object. He struck the Lord himself. Grumbling always strikes, and, ultimately, it always strikes the Lord.

But the gospel tells us that God takes that strike himself. Instead of standing on the rock and blasting the Israelites away, he stands on the rock and bears the punishment. This was just the beginning of God’s long-suffering. What started as a grumble in the desert rose to a cry in Pilate’s court: “Crucify him!” (Luke 21:23).

Alone on the cross, instead of grumbling, Jesus took our grumblings upon himself as the representative Grumbler. He died under them, struck by the judgment staff of God. When the soldiers came to Jesus to ensure his death, they “pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). That water was, as Paul says, the same spiritual drink the Israelites drank in the desert (1 Cor. 10:4). It came from a rock back then but came in Christ once for all on the cross. A drink of living water for all of us grumblers.

That’s the real family tradition—God’s grace for grumblers.

So how’s your quarantine going? Mine’s better than ever before, thanks for asking. I have all I need.

David McLemore is an elder at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons. Read more of David’s writing on his blog, Things of the Sort.

Posted at: https://gcdiscipleship.com/article-feed/grumbling

What Our Anger Is Telling Us

Article by Jonathan Parnell

Pastor, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Anger is not good for you, at least not in its typical form.

New studies argue that regular feelings of anger increase the likelihood for heart disease, and that within two hours of an outburst, the chances of a heart attack or stroke skyrocket. Which means all you angry folks better watch out; it’s a dangerous foible.

But wait. Anger is more than a problem for “you angry people.” It is actually a problem for all of us — that includes you and me.

Traditionally, the anger issue has been divided up between those who get angry and those who don’t. Some personalities tend toward red-faced eruptions; others are unflappably relaxed and easygoing. But the truth is, everyone gets angry — it’s just expressed in different ways. In her article “Why Anger Is Bad For You,” neurophysiologist Nerina Ramlakham says, “Now we separate people differently into those who hold rage in and those who express it out.” The question, then, isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.

And why we get angry has to do with love.

The Love Behind Anger

Anger doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not an original emotion. In one degree or another, anger is our response to whatever endangers something we love. “In its uncorrupted origin,” says Tim Keller, “anger is actually a form of love” (“The Healing of Anger”). Anger is love in motion to deal with a threat to someone or something we truly care about. And in many ways, it can be right.

“The question isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.”

It is right that we get angry with the delivery guy who speeds down our street when our kids are playing in the front yard. That makes sense. The delivery guy puts our children in danger. It also would be right that we get angry about Boko Haram’s hideous evil in Nigeria. It is unbelievably horrible.

But if we’re honest, as much as there are right instances for our anger, most of our anger isn’t connected to the incidental dangers surrounding our children or the wicked injustices happening across the world. As much as we love our children and care about innocent victims, our anger typically points to other loves — disordered loves, as Keller calls them.

Those Inordinate Affections

Disordered loves, or “inordinate affections,” as Augustine called them, are part of the age-old problem of taking good things and making them ultimate. It’s the slippery terrain that goes from really loving our children to finding our identity in them, to thinking that our lives are pointless without the prosperity of our posterity. It’s that insidious shift that turns blessings into idols. And when our loves get disordered, our anger goes haywire.

We’ll find ourselves getting annoyed at the simplest, most harmless things — the things that really shouldn’t make us mad. Keller explains,

There’s nothing wrong with being ticked — getting angry to a degree — if somebody slights your reputation, but why are you ten times — a hundred times — more angry about it than some horrible violent injustice being done to people in another part of the world?

“If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed, the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.”

Do you know why? . . . Because . . . if what you’re really looking to for your significance and security is people’s approval or a good reputation or status or something like that, then when anything gets between you and the thing you have to have, you become implacably angry. You have to have it. You’re over the top. You can’t shrug it off.

If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed in social media, or being cut off in traffic, or going unrecognized for work, or having an idea shut down, or feeling underappreciated by our spouse — the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.

Three Steps Out

So, what do we do? If anger is everyone’s problem, and if it often exposes our disordered loves, how do we break free from its claws? Here are three steps out.

1. Analyze the anger.

We must get into the details of anger and understand its source. It means that when we find ourselves getting angry — when those emotions start to rise up — we stop and ask: “What is this big thing that’s so important to me that I get this defensive?” What am I loving so much right now that my heart is moved to feel angry?

“If you ask that question,” says Keller, “if you do this analysis, more often than not you’ll immediately be embarrassed, because many, many times the thing you’re defending is your ego, your pride, your self-esteem.”

2. Feel sorrow for our sin.

We may feel embarrassed after asking these questions, or worse. Nothing is more ugly than opening the lid of our hearts to find this kind of corruption. But as rancid as it might be, we can face the fright with a bold sorrow. We are bold because the corruption, present though it is, cannot condemn us, or defeat us. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love. He bore the wrath we deserved, freeing us from sin’s guilt. He rose from the dead, empowering us over sin’s dominion.

“We can face our corruption with a bold sorrow. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love.”

And then there is sorrow. We are rightfully sad for how slow our souls are in receiving God’s grace. We are sad that we find ourselves more perturbed by our wounded ego than we are by the abortions that take place downtown, that we shake our fists at rude media more than we lift our hands to heal the broken, that we inwardly mock those who disagree with us more than we publicly defend the rights of the voiceless. We are sad about that in our depths with a kind of serious sadness that isn’t content to leave it there. We are grieved into repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9–10). We turn and we say, No more, Lord. Please, no more.

3. Remember the love of Jesus.

The obvious solution to disordered love is ordered love. But we can’t flip a switch for that. We can’t just stop loving one object wrongly to start loving the most lovable object rightly — that is, unless we’re strengthened by the Spirit to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:14–19).

When our eyes are opened to see and savor Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6), when we’re overcome by his grace (2 Corinthians 8:8–9), then we’re led to love him more than anything — and so increasingly care about the things that matter, and grow in not becoming angry when we shouldn’t be.

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is the lead pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis–St. Paul, where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and their seven children. He is the author of Never Settle for Normal: The Proven Path to Significance and Happiness.

Engaging Emotions Means Engaging God

J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith 

Engaging emotions without engaging God is a recipe for disaster.

Our emotions are fundamentally designed to force us to engage him, and the great lie—which, ironically, both stoicism and hyper-emotionalism buy into—is that we can and should deal with our emotions apart from bringing them to the Lord.

If we don’t engage God but simply use a “Bible-based system” or “method” of handling our emotions, we lose the core hope we have as Christians.

That hope is not in a system of strategies we can enact (though we are grateful for an action plan!) but in a Savior and Shepherd and ever-present help in time of need who sees us, knows us, loves us, and actually has the power, right here and right now, to help us with the turmoil of our hearts.

ENGAGING GOD MEANS POURING OUT YOUR HEART

Engaging God in our emotions is quite simple (even if it can be exceedingly difficult to bring ourselves to actually do it). Psalm 62:8 captures it with profound simplicity:

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.

If you trust God, David tells us, then pour out your heart to him. Or, put another way, trusting God necessarily includes pouring your heart out to him.

What does it mean to “pour out your heart”? Pouring out your heart simply means naming the colors you feel most strongly. It means bringing the sloshing mixture of churning paints to God and upending it into his hands one sentence at a time.

This is really quite a shocking thing for God to invite and even command us to do. Why would God be willing, much less eager, to hear the inner distresses and delights of people who from birth have rebelled against him? Why would God want hearts poured out into his hands when those hearts are divided, full of treasures that compete with single-minded devotion to him? Why would God choose to care about or listen to the weeping or pleading or crowing of a sinful creature who caused his beloved Son to go through physical and emotional anguish we could never fathom? Would you offer your shoulder to cry on to someone who killed your child?

We need to press this point. All of us are easily presumptuous, blind to the privilege offered us in God’s call to pour out our hearts. Imagine, the Father himself cares what you think, invites you to earnest conversation with him at any time, for as long as you need. A stunning honor—and yet we mostly see prayer as a tiresome duty. (Even the familiarity of the term prayer can work against us.) It doesn’t occur to us most of the time that prayer can and should include simply talking to God about what is on our hearts.

Yet this is exactly what we observe over and over in the Psalms.

Too often, even taking the time to ask in prayer for God to help us or do things for us feels inconvenient and impractical. How much more inefficient, we think to ourselves, to do nothing but blabber on in prayer about one’s feelings! Yet, in his mercy, God chooses to offer his listening ear to us, drawing out the depths of our soul in the safety of relationship with him.

We need to be brought up short by the shocking gift of pouring out our hearts to God.

THE GIFT OF POURING OUT OUR HEARTS

The importance of emotions in our relationship with God shouldn’t really surprise us. Relationships need emotions like fires need oxygen. It stands to reason, then, that if our emotions are the way our hearts were made to align with God’s, our relationship with him actually ought to be the most emotional relationship we have.

“Trying to develop a heart whose emotions overflow from loving what God loves without bringing your feelings to him is like trying to fly by flapping your arms instead of boarding an airplane.

Fundamentally, God gave you emotions to connect you, bind you, and draw you to himself. To engage your emotions in any other way than by bringing them to him goes against the very grain of your human, image-bearing nature. Is it possible for human beings to make significant changes to their motives and feelings through willpower, creativity, sheer grit, dumb luck, or self-effort, without any reference to the God who made us?

Yes. Because God made us with the power to have real impact on our world and ourselves, and because of God’s mercy on us, even people who don’t believe he exists can do things that cause their emotions to run in paths they prefer.

But for your feelings to reflect God’s feelings about this world and all that happens in it, you must bring your feelings to him. Trying to develop a heart whose emotions overflow from loving what God loves without bringing your feelings to him is like trying to fly by flapping your arms instead of boarding an airplane.

WHY YOUR ENGAGING MATTERS

Psalm 62 says one more very important thing we haven’t mentioned yet. It doesn’t end with the command to trust God by pouring out your heart. It ends by telling you why you can pour out your heart and why you can trust him.

God is your refuge.

It is hard to overstate the emphasis Scripture places on this point. Countless verses echo the words of Psalm 71:3,

Be to me a rock of refuge,
to which I may continually come.

Unless you know God is trustworthy, you won’t entrust yourself to him, especially not the precious treasures of your inmost heart. Only a God who promises to hear you and who really will handle the fragile affections of your soul with tenderness inspires the necessary confidence in us to lay our loves into his hands. It is because David knows how deeply we all struggle to trust God with the things we really care about that he emphasizes that God is a refuge when he calls us to bare our hearts.

WE CAN TRUST GOD

Scripture is full of similar promises. Why does Peter speak of “casting all your anxieties on him” (1 Pet. 5:7)? Because, Peter tells us in the simplest of words, “he cares for you.”

“The Bible will not compromise on this point: we really can trust God.

Do you realize what it means to care for someone? To devote time and energy and thought and effort to what will be good for another person and then act on that because you feel deep concern and affection for him or her.

Or, when the author of Hebrews encourages us to come confidently to God’s throne with our needs for sustenance and mercy, notice that he begins by reassuring us that Jesus can sympathize with us in our weakness and frailty (Heb. 4:15–16). God, the author of Hebrews wants us to know, is both strong enough and close enough to handle our most fragile treasures.

The Bible will not compromise on this point: we really can trust God. We have every reason to believe he is utterly committed to doing good to us and that he is more trustworthy in caring for us than we are in caring for ourselves. And we need every bit of it if we are going to pour out our hearts to him.

It’s all too instinctive for us to remain distant, disappointed, or demanding and, as a result, to pull back and keep our hearts to ourselves.

Content taken from Untangling Emotions by J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith, ©2019. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org.

J. Alasdair Groves (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) serves as the executive director for the New England branch of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). He is also the director of CCEF's School of Biblical Counseling.

Winston T. Smith (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) is the rector at Saint Anne's Church in Abington, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Marriage Matters.

Have a Healthy Fear of God

The coexistence of fear with joy and human flourishing seems to be difficult for many people to understand. Yet the psalmist says, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). Fear and joy not only can exist at the same time, but must.

The combination of fear with joy is not limited to the Old Testament; the New Testament is full of warning passages directed at Christians (or at least those who have every outward indication of being saved) which draw their motivational force from the production of fear. These warning passages exist alongside assurance passages which stress the confidence, hope, security, and joy we have in our faith.

The Fear of Fear

Nonbelievers have long mocked and rejected the role of fear in Christian teaching and proclamation. Bertrand Russell famously focused on fear in his critique of Christianity in the early 20th century. He argued that, “Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. . . . Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion has gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things.”

Christians likewise seem terribly afraid of fear. We want to stress motivation from positive emotions such as love and gratitude, and tend to be very uncomfortable with any use of fear appeals to motivate conversion or growth in holiness. Such fear of fear, however, comes at a cost, and the warning passages throughout Scripture suffer neglect or interpretive abuse as a result.

Many Christian leaders seem determined to convince their hearers that they should never experience any emotional discomfort when contemplating God’s holiness, justice, and judgment; “the fear of the Lord” is always understood to mean respect or awe and never, we are told, indicates that we should actually be afraid of God.

Divine Threats

This avoidance of fearful exhortation directed towards believers and unbelievers based on the reality of God’s holy and just judgment was not shared by the authors of the Bible. There is no space to explore the many warning passages, but we can briefly consider several direct threats from Jesus through John to his church in the book of Revelation.

Ephesus: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).

Pergamum: “Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth” (Revelation 2:16).

Thyatira: “Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works” (Revelation 2:22).

Sardis: “Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you (Revelation 3:3).

Laodicea: “I will spit you out of my mouth. . . . So be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:16, 19).

John did not follow up on these threats by assuring his hearers that they didn’t really apply, weren’t really severe, or didn’t mean what they seemed to mean. He doesn’t seem worried about potential emotional discomfort; fear producing threats were necessary to wake up and shake up the Christians and motivate them to repentance, perseverance, and faithfulness.

So how do we reconcile the biblical use of fear appeals and threats with our widespread cultural conviction that such rhetoric should be rejected? Recent research by argumentation theorists on the evaluation of threats in argumentation points to several points for evaluation.

Legitimate Threats

The context is key for determining whether a threat is appropriate. For example, if a salesman concludes his sales pitch by threatening to punch you in the face if you don’t buy his vacuum cleaner, the context would suggest the threat is inappropriate. Likewise, you would not want to conclude a marriage proposal with a threat. But threats are appropriate in other contexts. An academic dean can threaten a student with expulsion for plagiarism and a judge can threaten to take away your license for drunk driving. The legitimacy of a threat depends upon the context and whether the threatener has legitimate authority.

The Bible reveals a God who is sovereign and powerful, the ultimate legitimate authority. Since he is our Creator, we belong to him and he has every right to command, threaten, and judge. This reality is, of course, offensive and contrary to ideas of ultimate human autonomy and self-determination. We want to be in charge, and we want to determine for ourselves what we should and shouldn’t do, but such aspirations don’t align with reality or human capacity. We will always fail when trying to play God; our frail human bodies weren’t built for that.

Threatened by Love

A legitimate authority can still be critiqued for the inappropriate, overbearing, or cruel use of threats, but at this point the character and intentions of the threatener become very important. Is the threatener cruel, vindictive, arbitrary, and reckless or loving, caring, and kind? What does the threatener intend by the threat? Does he intend to humiliate, manipulate, and harm or does he intend the threat to lead to well-being, wholeness, and flourishing?

God’s love for us in our brokenness and sin is a major theme throughout the Bible. While we were still weak, unrighteous sinners, God demonstrated his love for us through Jesus’s death on our behalf (Romans 5:8). God’s love for rebellious and broken humanity motivated him to send his Son to rescue us (John 3:16). God intends his warnings and threats to motivate us to repentance, perseverance, and growth in holiness — this is the way to shalom, wholeness, and human flourishing. Rejection of sin and pursuit of holiness leads to a life increasingly free from debilitating addictions and the sin that dehumanizes and destroys.

Living with Fear and Joy

Healthy fear and joy in the God of our salvation not only can go together, but must. We will never find joy in God while willingly and habitually living in unconfessed sin.

I don’t find the motivation to flee temptation and sin by assuring myself that sin isn’t dangerous or that my choices don’t matter; motivation comes, in part, by recognizing the terrible danger that sin poses, even for Christians. This fear, however, is not debilitating or destructive; it motivates us to cling closer to Christ in desperate and persevering faith and trust. Such constant dependence through faith produces an unspeakable and glorious joy (1 Peter 1:8).

Alexander Stewart is academic dean and associate professor of New Testament language and literature at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Badhoevedorp, the Netherlands.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/have-a-healthy-fear-of-god?fbclid=IwAR3M2poRJoVDI97dYSeRznCaE_PN81ec5IEWvOCT7P5SKiyMX4fIdY9XR4M

Don't Follow Your Heart

By Jon Bloom

“Follow your heart” is a creed embraced by billions of people. It’s a statement of faith in one of the great pop cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in many of our stories, movies, and songs.

Essentially, it’s a belief that your heart is a compass inside of you that will direct you to your own true north if you just have the courage to follow it. It says that your heart is a true guide that will lead you to true happiness if you just have the courage to listen to it. The creed says that you are lost and your heart will save you.

This creed can sound so simple and beautiful and liberating. For lost people it’s a tempting gospel to believe.

Is This the Leader You Want to Follow?

Until you consider that your heart has sociopathic tendencies. Think about it for a moment. What does your heart tell you?

Please don’t answer. Your heart has likely said things today that you would not wish to repeat. I know mine has. My heart tells me that all of reality ought to serve my desires. My heart likes to think the best of me and worst of others — unless those others happen to think well of me; then they are wonderful people. But if they don’t think well of me, or even if they just disagree with me, well then, something is wrong with them. And while my heart is pondering my virtues and others’ errors, it can suddenly find some immoral or horribly angry thought very attractive.

“No, our hearts will not save us. We need to be saved from our hearts.”TweetShare on Facebook

The “follow your heart” creed certainly isn’t found in the Bible. The Bible actually thinks our hearts have a disease: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus, the Great Physician, lists the grim symptoms of this disease: “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19). This is not leadership material.

The truth is, no one lies to us more than our own hearts. No one. If our hearts are compasses, they are Jack Sparrow compasses. They don’t tell us the truth; they just tell us what we want. If our hearts are guides, they are Gothels. They are not benevolent; they are pathologically selfish. In fact, if we do what our hearts tell us to do, we will pervert and impoverish every desire, every beauty, every person, every wonder, and every joy. Our hearts want to consume these things for our own self-glory and self-indulgence.

No, our hearts will not save us. We need to be saved from our hearts.

This Is the Leader You Want to Follow

Our hearts were never designed to be followed, but to be led. Our hearts were never designed to be gods in whom we believe; they were designed to believe in God.

If we make our hearts gods and ask them to lead us, they will lead us to narcissistic misery and ultimately damnation. They cannot save us, because what’s wrong with our hearts is the heart of our problem. But if our hearts believe in God, as they are designed to, then God saves us (Hebrews 7:25) and leads our hearts to exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4).

Therefore, don’t believe in your heart; direct your heart to believe in God. Don’t follow your heart; follow Jesus. Note that Jesus did not say to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled, just believe in your hearts.” He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).

“Don’t follow your heart; follow Jesus.”TweetShare on Facebook

So, though your heart will try to shepherd you today, do not follow it. It is not a shepherd. It is a pompous sheep that, due to remaining sin, has some wolf-like qualities. Don’t follow it, and be careful even listening to it. Remember, your heart only tells you what you want, not where you should go. So, only listen to it to note what it’s telling you about what you want, and then take your wants, both good and evil, to Jesus as requests and confessions.

Jesus is your shepherd (Psalm 23:1; John 10:11). Listen to his voice in his word and follow him (John 10:27). Let him be, in the words of a great hymn, the “heart of [your] own heart whatever befall.” He is the truth, he is the way, and he will lead you to life (John 14:6).

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dont-follow-your-heart?fbclid=IwAR0Wrn0tGeV0OdlSOU3xbhk7turY7y2j2R5IPRaVVqWnKU3GN4Qm2t6FsvQ