Changed by the Word

GOD’S WORD AND GOD’S nature must inform your emotions. In saying this, I don’t mean feelings are unnecessary when, in fact, emotions are useful for many things. As utilitarian as they might be however, they become a danger to us and the world whenever they are detached from God’s Word.

For example, think of the ten spies who looked at the giants in Canaan, felt fear, and forgot God. Or consider David who walked his roof, observing a woman in covenant with another, feeling passion, and forgot purity of heart. Or Peter who inhabited a garden not only with his Lord but also with the men into whose hands his Lord had been delivered, and as his Lord was being taken, Peter felt a lot of things. Maybe fear, maybe zeal. Either way, after a sword was raised, an ear was removed. Feeling what he felt, he forgot the kingdom. When emotions are given underserved supremacy, they can lead us to respond to ourselves, others, and our circumstances in ways that reflect the emotion more than it does their Creator.

At this point, by singling out the negative influence emotions can have, one might see emotions as an enemy of faith. That too would be an irrational, or even emotional, way of seeing things. Emotions are good, for not only did our Lord make them, but He also has them. The issue then is not simply what or how we feel but how what we’ve inherited from Adam leads us to respond to said feelings.

To say it another way, emotions aren’t the problem; the flesh is. So then, in becoming more holy, doing away with emotions won’t serve us. What will is that God-breathed Word, both written and living—written in every narrative, epistle, prophet, and psalm, and living in the enfleshed God of heaven. Who, after ascending to that glorious right hand, together with His Father, sent their Spirit who once hovered over the waters to not just hover over but fully indwell the people for whom Christ died. These people will feel all kinds of ways all of the time, but they can and they must reflect God’s nature when they do.