"Managing Your Emotions" Week One!

Ladies! It was so amazingly cool to see all of you at Bible Study last night. I know that our Father was peering over the banister of Heaven and smiling at all of His precious daughters who took the time to come together and study His Word. It was good to see familiar faces and a whole lot of new ones. To you new girls...Welcome!! I hope to be able to get to know you better over the coming weeks.

So, I hope I didn't completely overwhelm you with all of those Scripture verses! I so want to be a contagious lover of God's Word to you. Nothing has brought me more freedom, restoration and down-right rescue from the pits like the Word of God, and I long for it to do the same for you. I hope that this coming week you will go back and review the Scripture verses and let the Holy Spirit do His work in your heart. So let's get started on some review of last nights' material and I pray that God will "open our eyes that we may see wonderful things in His law". (Psalm 119: 18)

The purpose of our introduction was to impress on the fact that it is vitally important to manage our emotions and never let them manage us. Emotions used in the wrong way can be devastatingly destructive to our relationships at home, at work, at church and perhaps even ruin our lives.

"You can't conquer what you don't confront"! The way to do that is to compare ourselves to the truth in the Word of God.
Hebrews 4: 12 (Amplified Bible) "For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart".

The big picture in getting our emotions under control is that Christ has called and commissioned us to our own spheres of influence and beyond. And we can only do this with the presence of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28: 19-20; Mark 16: 15-20; Acts 1:8

Remember our diagram of a train? The first car is named "biblical facts", the second, "faith" and the caboose is "our feelings and emotions". We let "biblical facts" lead, followed by "faith", and our "feelings and emotions" will tag along, like a caboose. Emotions and feelings should never drive the train of your life. Emotions are meant to be followers, never leaders.

We CAN manage our emotions!
Deuteronomy 28: 47-48; John 14:1; John 16:33; 2 Corinthians 10:5; Philippians 4:13

Emotionalism says, "It can't be wrong when it feels so right". Stoicism sings, "Feelings, nothing more than feelings, trying to forget these feelings". One extreme indulges the emotions. The other extreme ignores them. There has to be a balance. It is necessary to have balanced emotions. It is necessary to have emotions like: Love (1 Peter 4:8; 1 Corinthians 16:22), Hope (Romans 12:12), Joy (Philippians 4:4), Sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10), Hate (Proverbs 8:13), Fear (Matthew 10: 28). There is a place for emotion in the life of a Christian woman!

Emotion must produce the proper fruit. Love bears fruit in obedience (John 14:15; 1 John 5:3); Hope bears fruit in patience (Romans 8: 24-25); Joy bears fruit in sacrifice (2 Corinthians 8: 2-5); Sorrow bears fruit in repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10); Hate bears fruit in rejecting error (Psalm 119: 127-128); Fear bears fruit in departing from evil (Proverbs 16:6). Scriptural, biblical emotions will produce good fruit in the life of the Christian woman!

Faith doesn't come from feelings or emotional experiences. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10: 17; Psalm 119:105; Acts 17:11)

Scripture is our guide. (2 Timothy 3: 13-17)
We will fall into error if we lack knowledge of the Scriptures. (Matthew 22:29; Romans 10: 1-2; Hosea 4:6)

Living by our emotions or according to "the flesh" means that we cater to the appetites and impulses of the carnal or fleshly nature. (Romans 8: 5-8; 1 Corinthians 3:3) To be "carnal" is to be "under the control of the animal appetites; to be governed by mere human nature not by the Spirit of God".

We are never carnal, worldly, or unspiritual because we HAVE emotions. We become carnal, worldly, and unspiritual when we are "under the control of" our impulses and emotions. Carnal mindedness leads to death. Death by the consequences of sin, physical death, death of relationships, blocked flow of our relationship with God. (James 4:1; Romans 8:8)

What kind of fruit we bear depends on what is leading us; whether we are we being led by our emotions (flesh), or by the Spirit of God? (Galatians 5:16-25)

Right thinking will change wrong actions. We conquer our old ways of thinking with new ways of thinking according to the Word of God. (Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23)Walking in the Spirit, in the new way of thinking, according to the Word of God, will conquer the flesh and the emotions.

Remember: "Our feelings may be as uncertain and changing as the sea or shifting sand. God's facts, however, are as certain as the Rock of Ages Himself -- Jesus Christ...the same yesterday and today and forever".

Our key verse for this study is: Proverbs 28:26 (Amplified Bible)
"He who leans on, trusts in, and is confident of his own mind and heart is a [self-confident] fool, but he who walks in skillful and godly wisdom shall be delivered".

There you have it. If you have any thoughts be sure to click on the comment link at the end of this post. Type your comment in the text box and follow the instructions. I would so like to hear from you and watch as you interact with one another. Be on the look-out this week for situations where you can make the all important choice to follow the Spirit,or follow your fleshly feelings and emotions. Keep your antennae up girls, because you have an enemy who would love to cut you off at the knees!

I am so honored to be on this journey with each one of you. See you next week!
Caboose!!