Actually, the opposite of faith is not feelings...

Today’s reading offers a simplified version of what happens when someone is saved and then has doubts about their relationship with God:

“In the divine order God gives us first the fact of His salvation; then we believe these facts; and as a consequence, we have the feelings suitable to the facts believed. But we reverse this order and say, “I must have the feeling first, and then I can believe in that feeling, and thus I will get hold of the facts.” Of course this is absurd; but it is a very common temptation and is the cause of most of the pitiful uncertainty and doubt that characterizes so much of Christian experience.”

While this could be the explanation for some people, there are other reasons that it happens besides someone wanting their experience to “feel” right. Galatians offers them, making no mention of feelings.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:6–10)

Clearly the Christians addressed in this letter were fed false teaching and listened to it. The last two lines indicated that those who taught it were people-pleasers, or their listeners were because they wanted to please those who fed them lies. There is no mention of feelings here, only that human desire to be popular, or too polite to say NO to the lies.

Paul, who wrote Galatians, goes on to repeat the truth and to remind his readers that salvation is a done deal in Christ. They cannot add to it by their own efforts. This indicates the problem that caused their foolishness – pride in their own abilities. “I can do this myself” does not come just from the lips of impetulent children. It clings to me like a leech, sucking the very life of Christ from my mind and drawing me into an array of self-improvement programs that do not work. Paul knew their problem from personal experience, as I do:

For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:18–21)

This is not about feelings either. Rebuilding my life around that which is dead to that old way of life is simply thinking that I know better how to live than Christ who now lives in me. Duh. This is a slap in the face of God, a sin to confess rather than a feeling to ignore.

Paul ends with the same thoughts that he started in this letter, asking the Galatians to take a good look at who led them astray and from what they were putting aside:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? (Galatians 3:1–6)

PRAY: Jesus, You gave me the ability to hear and know Your voice. That alone is reason to pay attention to who and what I am listening to – my old nature? My desires and own ideas? The lies of Satan? The lies of false teachers? I know that ‘feelings’ can also mess me up, but there is more evidence in Your Word for being led astray by the opposite of facts which is lies. I’m very thankful to know the You, the Truth and the freedom You give.

Love doesn’t always feel good

Much of the writing done by the Apostle Paul would not get past a copy editor. The content is absolutely wonderful, but his structure is difficult to understand, and his sentences are way too long.

Yesterday and today I’m at a writer’s conference and while the focus is seldom on grammar, just being there made me notice that the Scripture reading for today (verse 19) is part of a section with two sentences (8-12 and 14-19), each with more than 100 words! The latter one says,

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Regardless of his long sentences, Paul writes marvelous truth for those who belong to Jesus. This passage is at the heart of Christian living. It essentially says that knowing the love of Jesus and having His Spirit living within me is the only way to love others as God loves me. Unless I know the love of Christ, I cannot begin to comprehend how to love others.

The devotional reading has a list of ways to show the love of Christ. It includes things like mend a quarrel, call a friend you haven’t seen for a long time, tell someone you know well how much he or she means to you, express thanks to others throughout the day, and send a check to someone who has a need.

As I read it, I thought that I’ve done many of those things recently, but the odd thing is that I’ve had very little of the emotions a person expects to go with showing love. Instead, my mind was occupied with what God was telling me to do and with what the other person needed. This might be part of what Paul meant when he wrote, “to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.”

I do understand that Christ loves me far more than I can comprehend. However, the nature of His love is not the same as my normal interpretation of love. Even though I say otherwise, I tend to think that if I am loving someone, I will have feelings regarding that person. Today I’m wondering if Christ had great feelings of affection for us when He was committing His greatest act of love? When He was dying on the cross, did He enjoy the emotions I associate with love? I don’t think so.

Exploring the topic of love always points me to believing that love really is action and a choice, not so much about emotions and feelings. If it were otherwise, I now realize how easy it is to slip into doing the actions of loving others because it makes me feel good. That gives those actions a selfish and unloving motivation which would make me unloving and a hypocrite.

This is helpful for me today. I’m with a group of people that are dear to me. I’m doing the right things, encouraging them, not focused on me, and as near as I can am obeying the Lord. However, I have no emotions and am even fighting negative emotions. I don’t want to be there. The temptation is to just leave and come home as I’m bombarded with thoughts like, “Why am I here?” related to “What’s in this for me?” along with counter thoughts such as, “This is not about you.”

Love is a sacrificial act. This is the first time God has asked me to sacrifice the ‘feel good’ part of loving others and just do it. I’m arguing with Him by thinking that love is produced by the Holy Spirit and He also produces joy. Where is the joy? And He says back to me that if the reason I’m willing to love others is simply for the joy I get out of it, then I’m being selfish and not loving others at all, at least not with the love of Christ.

Again, I hear God saying, “Suck it up, girl. This is not about you.”

Thinking His thoughts

“The biggest problem people have today is that they measure everything by their emotions.”

This was said to me yesterday at the writers’ conference by a young man whose life used to be a roller coaster of emotions. Now he says, “Christians must learn to base their lives on objective truth.”

Included in this discussion is how people determine what is good. Most people measure goodness by whether or not something makes them happy or comfortable. If it feels good, it must be from God, but if not, it cannot be part of God’s plan.

Of course, this includes suffering. It used to be that only non-believing people would say, “If God is good, why is there so much suffering in the world?” However, I’ve heard some Christians ask the same thing. I’ve done it myself, in so many words.

Yet suffering is inevitable, like death and taxes. It is not only certain, it is included in the plan of God. Peter wrote, “For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” (1 Peter 3:17)

God uses suffering. It might be a teaching tool, or chastening. As His children, we learn far more from our mistakes than we think. Besides suffering for making mistakes, Jesus, who made no mistakes, still suffered. Why should I be different?

Actually, I’ve experienced both. That is, I’ve often suffered because I did wrong and I’ve suffered a few times for doing something good. I can affirm that Peter is right; it is better to suffer for doing good. The pain is still there, but it is not as severe because I’m also feeling pain for the person who wronged me. When I get what I deserve, all the pain is my own.

Either way, God can use the struggles of pain and sadness. While he was trying to figure out the purpose of life, Solomon wrote, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:3-4)

Some might say this man took things far too seriously, but his philosophy fits with what I’ve also learned. I don’t pay much attention to God when I’m feeling good, life is comfortable, and nothing pinches. I don’t learn much about Him and His grace either. Yet when I am sad, particularly about sin in the world and sin in me, my heart is open to what God has to say. When I mourn for the losses and mistakes in my life, my heart is teachable.

The paradox in all of this is that sorrow and laughter and close cousins. The people who refuse to be sad very soon have problems with feeling joy. It is not good to shut down a negative emotion for it turns off the spigot for all of them. We can “be angry” but are also told, “Be angry and sin not.”

Yet when it comes to emotions, I’m learning to pay more attention to what I am thinking rather than what I am feeling. Emotions are connected to and flow out of the thoughts in my head. If those thoughts are God’s thoughts, then my emotions will match what He feels about my situation. I know that if I hate sin, then I will feel sad when I (or someone else) sins because God hates sin and is sorry when we sin. This is true for the events of life too. If something breaks God’s heart, I will feel that sorrow.

Yet God is not always doom and gloom. He is a happy God who tells us to rejoice in Him. When I think the way He thinks, I’m usually lifted out of sorrow. For instance, when my father died, most of our friends expressed “sorrow for your loss.” However, one young friend bounced up to me and said, “I know this is supposed to be a sad thing, but I am so happy for your dad!”

Instantly my thoughts were taken from my discomfort to my dad’s joy. He is with Jesus. How could I be so selfish to feel sorry for myself when God had taken him from pain to paradise? Every time I think of him, I think of that spontaneous expression of God’s thoughts and my grief over the loss is replaced by joy — from my Father — for my father.

Emotions, like pain, are symptoms of what needs attention. Yet if I try to live by them and make decisions by them, my life gets very complicated and muddled. Romans 12:2 tells me that I am far better off to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. . . .”

My challenge is avoiding the trap of measuring everything by my emotions and instead measuring everything by what God says.