Let no one tell you differently, emotions matter. How you feel emotionally from one day to the next is very important to your overall existence. God designed us in such a way that we live from the inside out, and not the outside in. With every choice and decision you make, you are building the foundation for your future. This is one of the major reasons why God admonishes us to operate from a place of faith and gratitude, because these emotions are excellent building blocks for our lives. Faith and gratitude also solidify two other extremely crucial functions. They bring us in alignment with God’s Will and Plan, and they allow us to be moldable to the Lord Jesus Christ.
God wants us to feel our absolute best at all times. We know from experience that there is an evil force that works against this, and we have to be spiritually astute enough to ask ourselves why. Why does God’s archenemy, the devil, try to undermine our ‘feeling good’ by sending darts, tricks, and all manner of distractions that seek to make us feel bad? The wisdom of Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there’s a reason and a purpose for everything that God has created, and He does not want us to be in the dark about those things that He has made available for us to know.
One of the big reasons why the enemy doesn’t want us to feel good and happy is because he knows what happens to our hearts and minds when we don’t. Our minds and hearts are the command centers of our lives. They work as both magnets and repellents. They can draw negative and positive people and circumstances, and they can also repel negative and positive people and circumstances as well. It can be no secret that the very best scenario would be for us to draw the most positive we can hold, and to repel all negativity in every way.
Proverbs 4:23(NLT) tells us to “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” You and I are the guardians of our hearts. We may have thought that God would do this for us, but He’s supremely intelligent, and He would not tell us to do something that He will do for us. He tells us to guard our hearts, because He’s given us this responsibility, and He will not take it back. This means that we are to be extremely watchful and observant of ourselves. We have to watch what comes into our hearts and what goes out of them, because our hearts impact our lives in a significant way.
God wants us to realize that we can make a good situation better by disciplining our minds and hearts, and we can make a bad situation worse by not doing so. Due to psychological or physiological conditions, it’s important to note that some people are not able to control their emotional or mental states. To the extent that we are able to make sound judgements and decisions, we are given our marching orders by the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us through his apostle in James 4:7 (NLT), “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
God would not tell us to do something that we are not able to do. This is a directive from our Creator that we are commanded to obey. It goes directly to the power He has given us to make good, correct choices and decisions for ourselves. He’s also letting us know that there is a spiritual transaction spearheaded in the exact moment that we exert our wills in accordance with His divine objectives. This spiritual transaction is an invitation for the Helper, the indwelling Holy Spirit, to strengthen us in our weak places and help us stand in the conviction of our wills.
John 4:24(NLT) tells us, “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” God is Spirit, and He created us in His image. We, too, are spiritual beings. Heavenly Father created us with emotions and thoughts to help us respond to Him SPIRITually. This is our purpose. We were created to have fellowship and relationship with God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit that indwells us. Humility is a requirement to sustain this harmonious relationship, because transformation must occur. We must be moldable like clay so that we can become, with each passing moment, more like Christ. We are not perfect in and of ourselves. We are being perfected in Christ as we stand in him and make choices and decisions that affirm our commitment to do so.
If we are of sound mind and judgement, God holds us responsible for governing our emotions. When they start to go south because of any condition or circumstance we might be experiencing, we run the risk of becoming inflexible, hard of hearing, and disobedient. Our marching order is to resist the enemy’s attack by refusing to go lower in the register of our emotions, and remain in a state of faith and gratitude. We ought to recognize the trick for what it is. Everything that the enemy does is an effort to pull us down, because the gravitational pull of negativity is always going to be in the direction of hell.
When our emotions and thoughts go in the opposite direction of faith and gratitude, our fellowship and relationship with Heavenly Father slips, because our first priority is no longer one of honoring and trusting Him with our emotions and thoughts. Instead, we get into flesh, and feel and think according to whatever our conditions are in the present.
One of the reasons why this behavior is detrimental is because it hinders our spiritual reception. Whenever we feel and think anything contrary to the mind of Christ, we disconnect from the outreach of the Spirit. This is the wedge the devil uses, particularly in the case of women. It’s atrocious to think of the many years that women have been swindled out of their destinies within the Body of Christ. So many limitations have been placed upon us, and this has spilled over into all other aspects of our lives. Generationally, the enemy has tried to breed inferiority in our psyches to such a degree that we feel we have no other choice but to succumb to the whims of our emotions. We allow them to be the governors of our lives, when only Jesus Christ deserves this place of distinction.
In John 10:27 (NLT), Jesus Christ said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” We’re the sheep, and we are to follow Christ. Sheep have good memories. They are able to recall the sound of the shepherd’s voice, and the instinct to follow is hard-wired into them. We have a Shepherd, and he must be followed. Jesus tells us in Mark 12:33 that we are required to love God with our whole hearts. This means that in those moments when we are feeling inadequate, moody, downtrodden, and broken; we must choose to guard our hearts and deliver them completely over to God. We must decide to take joy, gratitude, and peace by faith. In the very moment that we do this, the Holy Spirit will come through and renew us. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Moldable Like Clay” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2017. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.