Peace - Get off the Emotional RollercoasterНамуна

What can we practically do to learn how to abide in God better rather than our worldly emotions? Pastor Craig Groeschel said, “You do what you can do and let God do what he does.” 

We can choose to abide. God will not do this for you. He won’t force it on you. You have to choose. So we have five practical steps using the word abide.

• Agree with God
• Believe his Word
• Identify our triggers
• Deny our body
• Encourage yourself in the Lord

The first one is to choose to agree with God. In our culture, there are usually two choices. There’s no middle ground. You’re not agreeing with yourself. You’re either agreeing with God or you’re agreeing with the devil. 

Proverbs 18:21 says that the tongue has the power of life and death. One of the first things we do when we get frustrated is to tell a friend. “Oh, I just want to vent about it. If I can just vent about it, I’ll feel better.” There would be times our friends would say something offensive and bring more hurt feelings. These feelings rise up in us, making our thoughts start to take control of us. We dwell on it and we magnify it. We agree with our emotions, letting our negative thoughts go on and on, and our problems become bigger and bigger. 

But we have to think about God, who he is, and his awesome characteristics. As we do that, we start to agree with him. And as we agree with him, he becomes big and our problem becomes little. So we have to choose to agree with God.

Second, we’ve got to choose to believe his Word. In John 6:63, it says, “My words, they are spirit and they are life.” When you’re operating in your worldly emotions, you  know there’s no life here. It’s miserable. You’re thinking, you’re plotting, and you’re suspicious. You’re greedy, you’re lustful, you’re angry. You’re hurt, you’re wounded, and you’re sad. There’s no life in that. 

But God’s Word is life and peace. Just open the Word of God. Believe his Word and what it says about who he is and who you are—then live in the joy of his presence.