Emotions who’s controling who?
Have you ever said: I can’t help it, you don’t understand what they did to me, you don’t know what I’m going through or I just need to vent and get it out. No, you need to not let it in to begin with. There are Godly emotions and there are unGodly emotions. The enemy would have us think that we cannot help ourselves and to yield to these unGodly emotions. Letting them control us and our actions, that is a lie. It is the truth that shall set us free, not just knowing the truth but acting on the truth, and applying it to our lives. Controlling our emotions in a crisis situation may be a matter of life or death. One of the biggest trials the disciples would ever face was the night before Jesus’ crucifixion. Notice what Jesus told his disciples to do in John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.That is so important, He said it again in verse 27. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid. That is a powerful verse! Jesus would be unjust to tell us to do something we could not do. We should not be letting our hearts be upset, angry, bitter, or depressed. Neither should we be afraid or fearful. We should be walking in His peace. One night before I went to bed, I asked the Lord to show me anything that I should add to this teaching, I was expecting to see or hear a Bible verse. I don’t know what I was dreaming, but I felt a total piece come over me and then a great joy. The joy was so intense that it woke me up out of my sleep. I had never experienced anything like that before. The Lord was showing me that before the fall of Adam and Eve and the curse, this is how we were meant to feel. We should be walking in total peace and a joy that is as Jesus says is unspeakable. I believe the more we renew our minds and walk in the spirit, the closer we will come to living in that peace and joy. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But getting back to the end of verse 27, where it says neither let us be afraid. I just want to point out that the Greek word that was translated afraid here is (Deiliao) which means timid. Timidness is fear. This was an eye opener for me, because I would say I was timid and shy. That was a lie of the enemy and he was stealing from me. It is my responsibility to resist that and replace it with God’s word. God says that the righteous are bold as lions. Proverbs 28:1. So I speak that I am as bold as a lion and that is the truth. Now I need to start walking in that truth. If we are timid or dreading something, or we have concerns or are anxious about things, we are yielding to fear. Christians are unknowingly yielding to fear and resisting healing, speaking in tongues, and prosperity. In our spiritual walk we need to learn what to yield to and what to resist, because what we yield to is what gets into our hearts.
2 Corinthians 4:13 says; And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke, “ we also believe, and therefore speak. What Paul is trying to say here is that we have the same spirit of faith as the Old Testament prophets like Abraham, our father of faith. We should be able to overcome just as they have.
2 Timothy 1:7 says; For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. If God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, where does it come from? The enemy, satan. Remember Jesus took back the keys to the kingdom and satan has no power, he is a defeated foe. Gods word says, Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. We are not to give place to the enemy. We are to submit to God and resits the enemy and he must flee from us. Fear and any other ungodly emotion cannot get inside our hearts, unless we let it in. We must resist it and replace it. That is the key! Resist it and replace it.
2 Conrinthians referenced the spirit of faith and 2 Timothy speaks of the spirit of fear.The spirit of fear and the spirit of faith are like oil and water, they do not mix. You are either yielding to one or to the other. It’s kind of like multitasking. People say they can multitask but they cannot really do two things at one time. They are just going back-and-forth between the two very quickly. And that what the bible calls wavering. Scripture tells us that, that man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
It is my Testimony: I have already received my healing, I am healed. However when I go to the doctor for scans, they still show a dead mass. We thought we were walking in faith but we had some concerns. Steph would even say she dreaded them. You can see that we were yielding to fear unknowingly. Now with this new revelation, we can resist it and replace it with God’s promises. Believing in God’s report we can now go to these scans with total peace and joy, confidently expecting to see God’s full manifestation. Until that time, we know the truth, that I am already healed. The enemy can not move us. God’s words are the truth and they are life.
Psalms 23 says; Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. If we receive a bad report, the enemy will try to paint a bad picture of the situation and a bad ending. We need to stop entertaining these pictures and resist threm. We need to replace them with God’s good report, because faith has a good ending. The word tells us that God always causes us to triumph, emphasis on always. The enemy can’t stop us, he can only hinder us and try to get us to quit and give up. The choice is ours. If you are not seeing the victory keep going and don’t stop until you do. Remember that fear is all around us and that the enemy has convinced us that a little dread is ok, but that is not what the God’s word says.
Psalms 34:4 says; I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
God is faithful and if we will seek him, he will delivers us from not some but all of our fears. We should be walking in zero percent fear. We cannot afford to let fear run amok in our lives because that is probably the # 1 way the enemy steals from us.
Job 3:25 says; For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. That’s how the enemy gains access to us. If he can get fear, doubt and dread inside of us, he has an inroad to us. That’s how he comes, to kill and destroy. As children of God, we have the power and authority to stop him. We need to resist his tactics and replace them with God‘s word. Do you remember the story about Jairus and his daughter, in Luke 8:49 While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, “Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher.” But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, “Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well. This is a prime example of what we must do. Jesus turned to Jairus right away, he didn’t wait for his emotions and thoughts to run away with him. He told him not to listen to that bad report, not to let fear in, and to hear what He had to say about the situation. He said to believe only and she would be made well. It is easier to keep our emotions under control than to reign them in after they get out of control. It is like driving in the snow, if we go slow, we can maintain traction and stay in control of the vehicle. But if we get going to fast and start sliding it is almost impossible to regain control of the vehicle. That is how we can get hurt and or hurt those around us. Faith has hope. Fear and dread have torment.
Hebrews 11:1 says; Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Pay attentions, I think this where a lot of christians miss it. The word hope in the New Testament gets a bad rap, it does not mean wishing for something or strongly desiring something. God’s kind of hope means confident expectation. I think you can see this a little better if we take a look at Romans 8: 24-25. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. That sounds like confident expectation to me.
God is a faith God, right? Lets remember true faith has hope.
Romans 15:13 says; Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Faith and hope go together like a thermostat and a heating system. One cannot operate without the other, you need both.
My testimony of hope. I used to say that I couldn’t hear God. We can’t side against the bible and expect it to work for us. Now I say He is my shepherd, I am His sheep; I hear His voice, I know His voice, I follow His voice, and the voice of a stranger I will not follow. I believed that, but still struggled when I went into my private place to talk to Him. What I was lacking was hope. I didn’t have that confident expectation to hear from Him, but that was a lie of the enemy. When I enter in, confidently expecting to hear from Him it makes a huge difference. What are you expecting, good things or bad things. Hope is a positive imagination, we need to be able to see things in our imagination before we will see them in the physical realm.
Jeremiah 29:11 says; For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
How do we know if we are walking in faith and in hope? Check your levels of peace and joy. They must always be high. If they start to get a little low, we need to go back and look, and see what we’re yielding to and what we’re resisting.
A month ago I did something to my back, I could barely move. It was a real chore to get dressed or just bend over to tie my shoes. It reminded me how precious our health is. I spoke to the problem and my back started to get better. But during this time the enemy wanted to paint a picture, and play a movie for me. He wanted to remind me that this was how it all started, with back pain. He wanted to try to steal my peace and joy. He wanted to steal my healing. I must resist those thoughts and look to God and remind myself what He told me. God said, I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord, He said I have vitality. He literally showed me Him scanning my body and said “you are healed”. Who’s report am I going to believe. Immediately my peace and joy was full. God knew what I needed, He delivered me from my fear and restored my peace and joy.
We talked about timidness, and I would like to also mention passiveness. Satan loves passiveness. I believe passiveness is faith without works and faith without works (action) is dead. The Lord told me to honor my pancreas, to eat less sugar and to drink more water. I cut way back on the sugar but was a little passive on the water. The Lord reminded me of the story about Jesus at the well, with the samaritan woman. He asked for a drink and said if she would have known who He was she would have asked Him for a drink and He would have given her living water. Now I picture that scene and picture Jesus giving me living water as I aggressively and drink more water. Not passively but aggressively and boldly with purpose. God showed me that dead mass melting away.
The Lord put a song on my heart, He has a sense of humor. I know it was from him because I haven’t heard this song in over 35 plus years and it wasn’t a song that I listened to even back then. Its all about that base bout that base no treble. That little tune kept going through my mind, then He told me, Its all about that FAITH bout that FAITH no Trouble. Faith is critical. It is impossible to please God without it. It is how we receive from God and it is how we overcome the world. How do we make our faith stronger, we need to exercise it. Faith comes by hearing the anointed Word of God and if we want it to grow stronger, we need to use the faith we have. That is how we exercise it. Gods words are not idle words or empty words. They are like cups and in them contains the power and anointing to accomplish what they say. If we will only believe and act on them. Our faith and hope in the Lord allows us to resist the enemy’s report and replace it with God’s report. That is how we control our emotions and not let them control us. That is how we walk in victory and overcome the world.
