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Christian Survival Kit: Chapter 1 - part 5
** You can and must learn to control your emotions! God gave us a command to not let our hearts be discouraged, to not let them be troubled. You can do that. God would be unjust to command us to do something that we don't have the power to do. **
Date: 10/3/2019 12:52:39 AM ( 5 y ) ... viewed 1138 times
Christian Survival Kit: Chapter 1 - part 5
A Fork in the Road — Choose One
You can react two ways when a crisis hits you. You can choose to be encouraged or discouraged. You do not have to be defeated in a crisis. You do not have to fear. You do not have to be depressed.
Even many churches preach that you have mountain tops and valleys in your relationship with the Lord — up and down, up and down. But you don't have to be that way.
If you're not having a great time with the Lord, if your relationship isn't a constant upward trend, it's not because God makes it that way, it's because you've followed wrong thinking. You believed a lie, and you allowed your emotions to go up and down. You're following your emotions instead of following your faith.
So the first thing you have to do in a crisis situation is grab a hold of your emotions, grab a hold of your heart, and set it in the direction you want it to go.
Don't allow circumstances to dictate how you feel and how you're going to react. That's pivotal. It's important that the moment something comes against you, make a decision right then.
Thou Hypocrite!
That decision does not have to be based on how you feel. You may feel hypocritical in saying,
"I'm going to praise God even though I feel depressed." You may think, "Well, I'd be a hypocrite if I went ahead and acted like everything's okay."
You're actually a hypocrite when you go on your feelings because the true you, your spirit (the born-again part of you), is rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory all the time (1 Pet. 1:8).
There is always love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance in your spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).
So the decision depends on which self you consider to be the real you. If you consider the emotional part of you to be the real you, you're a hypocrite for acting differently. But if you see yourself in Christ Jesus, recognize that you are a new creature, and look at yourself through the word of God,
the true you, the spirit, will come out.
Your spirit never gets depressed, it never gets discouraged, it never gets fearful. If you feel anything contrary to that, you're a hypocrite — from God's standpoint — if you go by those feelings. For example, somebody says something that hurts your feelings. What are you going to do?
You've got a choice. You can either get down then gripe and complain about it, or you can grow up and forgive the person.
{People need to learn that life is not perfect - so you need to take responsibility for your life!}
Train Up a Child...
That's what we're really dealing with here — growing up. The same principles used for child training apply here. Most of us never grew out of doing whatever we felt like as children. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Take children, for example. We give them certain responsibilities and they do them. We don't care whether they feel like doing them or not. There are some things you just have to do. You just have responsibilities. I teach my kids that.
We've adopted that attitude as far as work goes — we have to get up and go to work. There are other things we have to do — pay taxes, obey the law, pay our bills, etc. But in our relationship with the Lord, we've gone back to being like children in a lot of ways.
You don't feel happy?
Well, grow up! Who cares how you feel? Stop caring how you feel — you are blessed (Eph. 1:3). You've got the joy of the Lord inside of you. You can choose to be happy if you want to be happy. You can choose to be blessed. You can choose to be excited about the Lord if you want to be.
Some people may be thinking, "Now, wait a minute. You don't know my situation. I agree with what you're saying, but sometimes you just can't overcome whatever."
Well again, you're putting your experience, your natural feelings, above what God's Word says.
God gave us a command to not let our hearts be discouraged, to not let them be troubled. You can do that. God would be unjust to command us to do something that we don't have the power to do.
In Deuteronomy 28:45-47, the Lord said He was bringing judgment on the children of Israel - "because you serve not the LORD your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things."
He held them accountable for their emotions!
In John 16:33, Jesus said, "In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." In this one verse Jesus made it clear that His command to be of good cheer was not just for the good times. But even in tribulation, be of good cheer!!
You can and must learn to control your emotions!
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