“So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2 MSG Bible
The usual image of a saintly Christian is one who has disintegrated his/her emotions, but it is better to visualize them as one who has harnessed their emotions.
The Bible tells us to crucify the ‘flesh’ not the emotions. (Gal. 5:24) On the other hand, unless emotions are controlled, they may run from sensuality to depression.
The biblical sequence is clear; ‘my’ emotions are to be controlled by my disposition of ‘mind’ and my disposition must be controlled by my will. When Paul said, “Let this mind be in you...” (Phil. 2:5) he was not speaking of Jesus’ brain, but His way of thinking, His disposition.
If Christ is alive in me, it follows that His way of thinking is alive in me, therefore, all I need to do is to turn my will over to Him and consequently His disposition begins to appear in my life.
If allowed to run free, our emotions can lead us into danger. That is because emotions do not make moral choices. Unless, our emotions are disciplined---- prevented from going too far--- we can expect trouble. When emotions control us we can become double minded and unstable in all our ways.
A true Christian is not emotionless, nor are they unemotional, they have simply learned when to let their emotions run and how far. If we do not rule our emotions they will rule us.
Whenever fear, love, hate, lust, prejudice, selfishness, jealousy or any other emotion dominate us, we become a neurotic.
Our victory lies in forcibly denying our emotions any preeminence by an act of the will. We must continue to put our emotions into the hands of God so that we are totally surrendered to Him.
Allow Him to totally control your life, including your emotional side.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Gal. 5:22-24 NIV
No comments:
Post a Comment