- Living by God's Truth or Our Feelings? -

Pastor Richard D.S. Glen

An excerpt from a larger series on the love of God 

Ps 16:11 “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

The world has a love that is focused on human emotion and community feelings instead of the love of God through His Word. As Christian we must watch our feelings to make sure they are the fruit of a life lived for God and not the root of a life lived for God. Our feelings don’t guide us into Christian service but accompany us in our Christian service. Our feelings are the caboose not the engine.

We know that we are going to go through trials to serve Christ but how are we going to go through these and ‘finish our course with joy?’(Acts 20:24). Nowadays the services in some churches is all about emotions but we need to do more than just make folk feel good but rather learn to ‘endure hardness as a good soldier’ (2 Tim 2:3). Now as Christians, Christ has given as a true peace that comes only from God but are we latching onto this peace from God or the fake peace and love that our flesh has to offer us. There is a difference between the emotional thrust and the spiritual thrust in our hearts and if don’t latch onto the genuine, ours will be short-lived. God will sometimes knowingly put us into situations that make it unattractive to our fleshly emotions to follow God’s way. These come so that we realize our Christian life isn’t built on our scale but God’s. We don’t serve God because it feels good or it makes our day or invokes fond memories—no, that’s not serving God that’s serving ourselves. Why was the book of Jeremiah written when he was such a looser? Furthermore why did God have to make it so long and drawn out? Why didn’t it go something like ‘Jeremiah preached, nobody listened, and he died?’ God doesn’t want us focusing on the results but to be obedient.

Here’s something interesting: the word ‘feeling’ occurs only two times in the whole Bible, ‘felt’ occurs five times and ‘feel’ seven times. However there are lots and lots of verses about love, joy and peace. Statistically we can assume that feelings are not the primary focus of the child of God, they are not the central issue or the driving force. Though they may not be the focus it doesn’t diminish that there are good Godly feelings that we will experience. The peace of God is very important and so is love and hope. Hope, in fact, is what enables us to go on and on and on for God in spite of adverse circumstances. So basically our feelings (for or against us) are not the central issue but the Word of God is, and it tells us what to believe whether are not we like it. The Word of God is true regardless of how you feel about that too. Even if you had the worst day at work or at home you better not blame God for it as if something in the Bible broke to cause us to have all of these problems. God expects us to rest assured with calm confidence that God is right and we submit. This type of faith is what brought missionaries out to the field despite stories of diseases, wild animals, cannibals and you name it. Now it’s hard for our modern day missionaries to go out and stay out even when something minor happens. I’m not saying that to discredit our missionaries but just to say that the emphasis on the Word of God has changed deep in our Christian culture.

There are at least two types of preaching that we see today: one that focuses on the heart and feelings and the other on doctrine—which one is right? Many preachers that come from Pensacola Bible Institute tend to focus on doctrine whereas those from Shady Acres tend to focus on emotions. Emotional preaching uses lots of illustrations that tug at the heart with the idea that if everyone is teary eyed or shouting ‘GLORY’ than it was a Holy Ghost filled message. Just because everyone is sobbing does that mean God is in it? Maybe and maybe not! Politicians can preach a very good political sermon and even cause you to cry but that doesn’t mean that it’s from God. Adolf Hitler was very good at preaching to the emotions. Newspapers would often say that Hitler would ‘draw you in’ with his speaking like a pull that you couldn’t stop. As you know, Hitler was not preaching anything godly.

In spite of the previous example, all emotional preaching is not wrong because it may be in a different context. Sometimes heavy emotional preaching mixed with the truth of the Word of God is what is needed to wake up a callused Christian to humble himself to God and open his ears to the Word of God. Ideally we want to, and sometimes can, have our emotions and doctrine in sync with God, but the doctrine is absolutely first. We must have the filter of sound doctrine that will filter out the error in an emotionally charged message so that we aren’t carried away and deceived (II Tim 4:3). We absolutely must filter everything by the Word of God.

Furthermore; our drive must come from the Word of God alone. Being emotionally stirred without doctrine will only last as long as we are on the emotional high, whereas doctrine instructs unto wisdom. The Samara warriors for example were emotionally charged fighters who when their supplies ran out, rather than surrendering, charged the American machine gun posts with drawn Samara swords meeting instant death. We can have all the emotions we want but without a plan we are dead on the battle field just like the deceived Samara. Too many Christians are slain on the battlefield spiritually because they came to the fight with no preparation spiritually.

Ps 42:1-2 “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. [2] My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?”

Our desire as shown here needs to be with God not our own feelings. We need to go with God even though the going is against our feelings such as when God judges us for example. Can we say to God as the men of old that He has well spoken concerning the judgment that God pronounced upon them? It’s nice to have a dessert dish but if that’s all we ate we would be in bad shape. We must also have the salad and the veggies and the cards and the protein, etc.

Is this desire strong enough to keep us from quitting even when the emotions are tired of the fight? When you’re behind in your Bible reading does that mean you get discouraged and quit? If you’re sick or scared or sad does that cause us to break fellowship with God and his children? No. The effects of purely emotional preaching are only temporary but doctrine equips for the fight ahead. Courage is strong and needful but will not win the battle alone. If a soldier doesn’t know how to clean a gun, pack a tent, read a map, etc he will not last long regardless of his level of courage. Without a strategy you just can’t win.  

II Cor 2:11 “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”

How do you work a marriage? How do you train children? How do you manage your public ministry? If the devil has plans to snare us than we have to have the plans to avoid the traps.

II Tim 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”   

How do we know Jehovah’s Witness, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, and all other cults are wrong? Because of doctrine, regardless of how ‘sincere’ and ‘loving’ or ‘enthusiastic’ they are. There may come a day where you will have to deny how you ‘felt’ about a strong emotional experience that was significant in your life if the Word of God reveals corruption in it. Some people who say that they received the ‘second blessing’ (speaking in tongues) refuse to accept sound Bible doctrine on the subject because what they felt was so powerful to them that they deny black and white truth. Wouldn’t it feel good to speak a ‘heavenly’ language or that hell doesn’t exist after all or that we will be our own gods on a separate planet someday? Study, study, study—it will keep you from deceit.

Eph 6:10 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. [11] Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

We have equipment that we need to know how to use and when to use. Just like a soldier has standard operating procedures that he has to know or else he could die, so do we. The guidelines are not at all based on feeling but often against the natural tendencies otherwise why would we need them? Emotionally fueling yourself will not enable you to survive. Good preaching has a good mix of both doctrine and emotions not just one or the other. God’s given us His Spirit so that we can rejoice in the Lord and have peace above all understanding (Phil 4:7). As said earlier, sometimes the spirit of conviction will be much stronger when we are emotionally driven to fall under the hand of God.

1Co 15:34 “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.”

Sometimes Christians are so asleep spiritually that it takes strong preaching to wake them up. Sin will lull to sleep just like a natural gas leak will when no detection devices are available to sound the alarm. A couch potato Christian may need an emotionally charged message to shake him out of his little shell and submit to the service of God. Oftentimes zeal for God will not come from an emotional message but from living for God. Every Saturday night we make it a part of the church schedule to go downtown Portland for street evangelism. Often I don’t want to go and it’s like dragging a dog on a leash going out the door but then when I get down there and start talking to people about Jesus saving sinners it gets exciting and by the time we go home I couldn’t regret a second of it all.

Feelings from God transcend the feelings of the flesh. Paul should have been afraid of the Jews taking his life but he was calmly serving God in all boldness and joy!

Ac 20:24  “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”

God wants the spiritual emotions to transcend these fleshly fears to make us bold as a lion (Pr 28:1).

A friend of mine in the Navy named Tim was saved out of Catholicism. After he got saved and as he was study his Bible with the Xmass season approaching he announced that based on his studies the family was not going to celebrate Xmass. His wife (still a Catholic) packed her bags and took everything to the front door and set them down. Looking at Tim she said “If you drop this stuff I’ll stay but if you don’t, I’m leaving.” With tears in his eyes he told his wife that he wanted her to stay because he loved her but he loved God more. She broke down in tears and right then and there got saved. The right choice may be to look fate in the face and answer the truth according to God’s perfect will, which He shows us in His word.

Another time I went on a Mediterranean tour with petty officer Mark (name substituted for confidentiality). Mark got saved before the tour and grew tremendously and was excited living for God and witnessing and street preaching. He even came to me and said “Mr. Glen, I feel I have the call to preach” and I said “praise the Lord! Pray for God’s leading and follow God.” By the time we got to the Mediterranean everyone was getting letters from home but Mark.  When we landed in the port of Spain all of the sailors lined up at the phones to get a call through to home. I was in one line and Mark in the other. After getting off the phone with my wife I met up with him and asked him how it went. He was very somber and said “not good.”

“Why?” I asked.

“My wife is sick and tired of True Vine Baptist Church and said if I don’t stop going there and stop going to the church on board the ship here she is leaving me. She wants to go to this other church.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her I would stop.”

“But Mark, you can’t do that! I mean, you can; but you can’t afford it spiritually! Let me ask you some questions: do we teach you out of the Bible at True vine?”

“Yes”

“Do we preach true doctrine?”

“Yes”

“Do we encourage you to live for God?”

“Yes”

“Do we help you grow spiritually?”

“Yes”

“Then why is leaving True vine an option for you?”

“But she threatened to leave me!”

And so that is how Mark allowed himself to be turned away from God for the sake of his wife. When he did actually get back from his tour his wife had cheated with at least 5 other men. I have no idea where he’s at spiritually today.

It does get very tough. Sometimes it’s our marriage on the line or our job. We have to ask God for rational reasoning when these big issues arise so that we can serve God without getting caught up in emotional problems. Paul was in prison and had a lot of reasons why he could be despondent and give up. People had left him, Nero wanted to kill him and there was no way out of his current situation. But this is how he described it.

II Timothy 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.  
3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;  
4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.  
5  But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.  
6  For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  
7  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  
8  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

There is no hint of even remorse in this letter from Rome. Here he is exhorting Timothy to fight just like he did regardless of where it put him (in this case prison) to obtain the crown. Paul even refers to his death as the ‘departure’ as if it’s a light thing. This was no fearful time for Paul but one of soundness in the promises of God. We have to have blind eyes towards any counsel that will be against the will of God; ready to shun any counsel that will turn us away from the truth of God.

In conclusion: we need to pray and ask for the discernment that will allow us to overcome our fleshly feelings; whether it is to go on when our flesh says to quit or even to quit when our flesh says to go on.