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God created us with feelings to enrich our lives. Feelings intensify the cravings of desire, the burning of passion, the expectation of hope, the joy of accomplishment, the warmth of friendship, and the ardor of love. Moments of pleasure are richly enhanced by feelings of ecstasy, excitement, elation, inspiration, appreciation, happiness, tenderness, and affection. Feelings also magnify the pain of rejection, the heartache of abandonment, the trauma of abuse, the anguish of defeat, the despair of hopelessness, grief over loss, and indignation over injustice. Feelings act as an alarm against those things that cause emotional pain and physical harm. Often, it is our feelings that rouse us to back away from people, animals, things, and situations which stir within us a sense of fear, revulsion, or disgust. And feelings enable us to empathize with others. Because we have experienced the feelings associated with such things as love, kindness, gifts, pleasure, embarrassment, discouragement, injustice, loss, pain, and death, we are able to identify with those who experience similar situations.
Feelings
are a
tremendous gift from God. Yet as wonderful as they are, feelings do not
have
the capacity to reason or remember. Feelings cannot be educated so as
to
increase in knowledge and wisdom. Feelings cannot dependably
distinguish
between truth and error, right and wrong, reality and make-believe.
Therefore,
God created us with an intellect so we would have the ability to think,
reason,
conceptualize, remember, learn, gain wisdom, ponder, and project
probable
future outcomes or consequences of current situations or choices. This
makes
the intellect uniquely different from the ability to feel.
With
intellect
comes the ability to remember what we have learned and experienced.
Memory
makes it possible to accumulate knowledge, which in turn allows us to
grow in
understanding. Increased understanding improves our ability to wisely
deal with
people and the daily circumstances of life. Memory also gives us the
ability to
remember important things necessary to our well-being. It is this
ability which
enables us to remember what is foolish or harmful, and what is wise and
helpful. When we use our memory as God created it to be used, we are
able to
make better decisions in the present because of what we remember from
the past.
Intellect
makes it possible for us to reason and conceptualize. The ability to
reason and
conceptualize helps us understand complex ideas, human behavior,
difficult
situations, and ourselves. The ability to reason and conceptualize
helps us
apply truths acquired from one experience or area of life to other
experiences
and areas of life. This ability improves our decision making, enabling
us to
consider what may happen as a result of the choice we are about to
make. With
this ability, we can imagine what might be and proceed to pursue it or
avoid
it. We can reason things out in order to better understand something or
make a
wiser decision. And we can understand the feelings and needs of others.
To work in cooperation with our intellect, and to increase our ability to do what is right, God added a conscience. Our conscience has the ability and responsibility to be the moral guardian of our lives. It helps us discern what is or is not right and good about our behavior, our intentions, our thoughts, and the varied attributes of our character. God has given our conscience the ability to warn us when we are about to do something wrong. Our conscience is able to fuel within us a sense of guilt when we have done something we know is wrong. It is able to promote a sense of obligation to do what we know is right. And, it is able to provide us with a sense of peace and contentment when doing what we know is right. It is important to keep our conscience in good working order. Like a muscle, we can render it useless through misuse, weaken it through lack of use, or strengthen it by acting in accordance to what it says.
Because
mutual
love and trust between two people is dependent on the ability and
freedom to
choose, God created us with a will. The will is that part of our being
which
makes decisions – deciding what we will or will not do. The
will is aided by
our intellect, conscience, and feelings, but it alone holds final
authority over
each decision we make. Everything we do or say, spend time thinking
about,
genuinely believe, give attention to, or establish as a goal is the
result of
our will choosing to do so. It seems there is nothing done on the
conscious
level which is not an act of the will – whether it be right
or wrong, active or
passive, selfless or selfish, humble or prideful, patient or impatient,
kind or
unkind, loving or unloving.
The
will not
only holds sway over our active choices and behavior, it directs our
inactive
ones, too. When we refuse, neglect, or ignore doing what we know is
right, it
is our will which has made the choice to do so. When thoughtless,
careless, or
lackadaisical, it is our will which has decided we should be this way.
Therefore, we are as responsible for what we do as we are for what we
do not
do.
But
doesn’t
everyone make mistakes? Yes. Hasn’t everyone been careless or
thoughtless at
least once in their life when they didn’t really intend to
be? Not really. It
may seem that way from one perspective, but we do know the difference
between
an accident and carelessness. To make this clear, start with the
obvious.
Refusal
to do
what we know is right is an obvious choice – an indisputable
act of our will.
If something bad happens as a result, it’s no accident. We
made a conscious
choice, and the results can only be our responsibility.
Therefore,
whether we are ignoring, neglecting, or refusing to do what we know to
do, it
is an act of our will. And since what we are doing is an act of our
will, we
are rightly held responsible for what we have done.
No
one can
force us to do or say anything against our will. If we, through an act
of our
will, do not agree to it, we will not do it. Alcohol or drugs may dull
our
senses, pervert our feelings, muffle our conscience, and limit our
ability to
reason, but our will is still intact making choices as always. People
may try
to control us by making threats, inflicting pain, or causing us injury.
Or,
they may try to control us by giving us special privileges, acceptance,
pleasure, fame, power, or riches. Yet we, through the activity of our
will, are
still the ones deciding how we will interpret and respond to any given
person,
group, or situation.
If
we give
into the wishes or demands of others, we do so because we will to do
so.
Submission to the will of others is not caused by the lack of choice or
the
inability to choose. It is the result of choosing what we believe is
better in
comparison to what we think might or actually would happen if we
resisted. The
reality is, we can resist anyone or anything so long as we are willing
to pay
the price of resistance – be it severe punishment, great
loss, excessive pain,
imprisonment, or even death.
Though
God
created us with the ability and freedom to control our choices and
behavior by
the instrument of the will, our will does not work alone. It works in
conjunction with our intellect, conscience, and feelings.
On
one side of
our will is our intellect and our conscience. They work together to
influence
our will toward the choice they believe is best. On the other side is
our
feelings.
Though
our
feelings can be powerful and as such seek to exert significant
influence over
our will, they are not equipped to promote right or wise or realistic
choices
over wrong, foolish, and irrational ones. Feelings can just as easily
influence
us to choose what is wrong as what is right. Why? Feelings are just
that –
feelings. They cannot think, reason, remember, or conceptualize. They
have no
stability. They change with the circumstances or the direction of our
thoughts
because they respond to what is going on around us and in us.
Feelings
cannot tell if our fears are rational or irrational. They cannot tell
if our
fears are based on reality or what we imagine is reality.
The
child who
is afraid of the dark fears what might be when he is in the darkness.
His fear
is an irrational response to what he imagines is in the darkness. But
try to
convince him of that. No amount of reasoning will remove his fear until
he is
old enough to reason it out. Until then, he is ruled by his feelings of
fear,
and the only solution that calms his fear is to turn a light on.
The
child who
has been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused by a close
relative
develops the fear of being taken advantage of by adults in a position
of trust.
This becomes a fear of what might be. This fear is directed toward
people in
authority, primary care-givers, and those who are being depended on for
love
and acceptance. Without question, this fear is based on a real and
tragic
experience. Yet it is irrational to transfer distrust of the person who
has
taken advantage of us to others who hold a similar position of
importance and
trust. Misplaced fears of this kind promote automatic and excessive
distrust of
people who have not shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Because this
fear is
based on excessive distrust, it makes it nearly impossible to build
intimate
and durable relationships with those who are nearest and dearest,
including
God.
These
two
examples demonstrate how feelings do not know the difference between
rational
and irrational fears. Feelings only know fear as fear. God gave us an
intellect
to determine what kind of fear we are experiencing and what we should
do to
face, calm it, or reject it. In other words, our feelings tell us we
are
fearful and our intellect tells us what kind of fear it is and what
action we
need to take.
Feelings
cannot tell the difference between the sensations of pleasure which
result from
doing something we know is right, and those which come from doing
something we
know is wrong. In fact, we seem to feel pleasurable sensations more
quickly and
intensely when doing something we know is wrong. The drug addict, the
alcoholic, the sexually promiscuous, and the overeater could each
attest to
this fact. If we give our feelings authority over our will in regard to
pleasure, then the degree of pleasure experienced or expected becomes
the
deciding factor over our choices rather than our knowledge of right and
wrong.
Feelings
of
sexual passion know nothing about morality or what is required to build
good,
enduring relationships. They know nothing of the difference between sex
for the
sake of personal pleasure and sex as an expression of love between a
husband
and wife. They take no interest in values which seek the good of the
individual, the good of the family, and the good of the community. They
are not
concerned with the sanctity of marriage or the preservation of the
family. They
only know they want to be gratified.
Therefore,
if
we follow our feelings, we will live like so many in our society who
overspend
because of impulse buying, overeat because of taste cravings, smoke
because it
calms their nerves, drive too fast for the thrill of speed, build
financial
nest eggs to feel secure, and who are sexually active outside marriage
for the
pleasure of sex.
It
is with our
intellect that we can see the folly of living according to our
feelings. And it
is through the use of our intellect that we subdue our passions so they
follow
us in doing what is right, rather than leading us into doing what is
wrong.
Feelings
cannot distinguish the difference between the leading of God and the
leading of
our selfish desires, impulses, and passions. Only our intellect and
conscience have
the ability to evaluate urges, promptings, impressions, intuitions, and
premonitions in order to discern if they are leading us into doing what
is
right and God-pleasing or what is wrong.
One
of my
earliest experiences with this had to do with gossip about a member of
our
family who, indeed, did an evil thing. Two ladies from our church, who
had
every right to know of the sinful situation, passed the story on to a
married
couple in another church. The married couple passed it around their
church, and
from there it spread to other churches. In time, we discovered what
these two
ladies had done and how far the story had traveled – a story
which should have
stayed within the confines of our church. Truly, the couple they told
had no
need to know, and those whom the couple told were not helped by what
they
heard. So why did these two ladies pass the story on? They said they
felt, deep
inside, the leading of the Lord to tell the married couple this story.
They
justified gossip on the basis of feelings – feelings
attributed to the
influence of God in their lives. They were convinced that what they had
done
was an act of obedience to God because of the way they felt at the time
they
did it. They did think about God’s written word which exhorts
Christians to avoid
gossip or being a busybody by talking about things not proper to pass
on (1
Timothy 5:13). In other words, they did not consider the
appropriateness or the
consequences of their action, because they were using their feelings to
decide
what action they should take.
If
we allow
our feelings to be the supreme influence over our will, we will become
slaves
to our feelings. We will increase self-centeredness, promote irrational
and
foolish behavior, become self-destructive, exploit others, distrust
God, and
reject portions of His word. Our feelings will drive us to make foolish
assumptions, wrongly criticize, say malicious things, gossip, become
bitter,
hate, take joy in getting even, give in to hopelessness and depression,
act
greedy, steal, lie, be jealous, and many other selfishly sinful
behaviors.
To
keep us
from being enslaved and destroyed by our feelings, God has given us the
power
to rule over them. This power is in our intellect and conscience. They
have the
power to rule over and overrule any feelings in any situation at any
time. When
we allow our feelings to be the primary influence, it is the result of
a
voluntary choice to move from doing what we know or can discern is
right to
doing what feels right or feels best or gratifies the most.
At
best,
feelings can sometimes give us a sense of what is right, but our
intellect and
conscience are the only parts of our being that have the ability to
consistently and accurately determine what is right. This is why God
communicates to us and appeals to us through our intellect (the
combined
work of our memory, thinking ability, reasoning ability, and conceptual
ability).
Through
the
use of our intellect we are able to comprehend God’s
invisible attributes, His
eternal power, and His divine nature as revealed in creation. It is our
intellect which enables us to read and understand God’s Word.
Through our
intellect the Holy Spirit clarifies and increases our understanding of
God’s
character and Word. Through our intellect we are able to discover,
consider,
and decide the most practical, loving ways to apply what we know about
God and
His Word to our everyday choices, behaviors, relationships, and
circumstances.
Down
through
the centuries, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers
have
spoken on God’s behalf. Our intellect enables us to
comprehend what they are
saying. Our intellect enables us to discern their credibility, and
weigh their
words against the way they live. Our intellect enables us to search the
written
word of God to see if what they are teaching is true. And with our
intellect we
can figure out how to apply their message to our own life.
It
is our
intellect that makes it possible for us to know when God is speaking to
us.
Whether He speaks in the burning bush or through the handwriting on the
wall,
by means of His ‘still small voice’, through
angels, or in dreams and visions,
according to the scripture accounts of God speaking, His message always
comes
in a form which is received and understood by our intellect.
Satan,
and the
sinful forces in our society, appeal to us through our intellect, too.
They
appeal to our intellect in an effort to stir up distrust of God,
prompting us
to believe that God is not completely good and His Word is not
completely
reliable. They encourage us to use our intellect to invent elaborate
excuses
and seemingly logical justifications for doing what we know is wrong.
They prod
us to use our intellect to seek new, more exciting, more gratifying
ways to
satisfy our passions, impulses, and desires. They want to get us so
involved in
thinking about the beneficial side of sin and the defective side of God
that we
are distracted from thinking about how sin destroys us and
unnecessarily harms
everyone affected by our sin. However, their greatest influence and
strongest
appeals are directed toward our feelings.
We
are tempted
to sin when our fears, desires, impulses, and passions are excited by
something
that either threatens us or promises to gratify us. If we respond to
the
temptation in a self-centered, self-serving manner, we sin. If we
repeatedly
respond to the same temptation in a self-centered, self-serving way, we
have
entered into the practice of sin. The practice of any particular sin
quickly
becomes a habit. A habit easily turns into an addiction. And when we
are
addicted to a particular sin it means we have become enslaved by the
feelings
which trigger that sin.
At
this point,
we neglect to use our intellect and conscience as God intended them to
be used.
We are not interested in clear, rational thinking. We have gotten so
engrossed
in the pursuit of self-protection or self-gratification that there is
hardly
time or interest to sensibly think about what is right. And we
certainly don’t
want to be told by our conscience what is right. Rather, we want to
enjoy our
sin. So we dull our conscience, confine our thinking to selfish
interests, and
focus our attention on the gratification of self.
Consider
this
list of sins compiled from Mark 7:21-22, Romans 1 and 2,
I Corinthians 6:9-10, and Galatians 5:19-21.
"Evil
thoughts, sexual immorality, adultery,
homosexuality, prostitution, orgies, sexual impurity (such as
pornography),
sensuality, lovers of pleasure, greed, idolatry, malice, hatred,
jealousy,
envy, outbursts of anger, creating discord, dissension, factions,
strife,
deceit, swindling, stealing, slander, gossip, arrogance, boastful
pride,
insolence, murder, drunkenness, and witchcraft."
All
these sins
are the result of giving feelings primary influence over the intellect
and
will. In every case, the sinner has stopped listening to his conscience
and
quit thinking rationally, that is, in a godly, sensible way about right
and
wrong. Instead, he is willfully and selfishly acting on the feelings
aroused by
his fears, desires, impulses, and/or passions.
Therefore,
each one of us is tempted when out of fear, desire, impulse, or passion
we seek
gratification in some ungodly, excessive, unnatural, or forbidden way.
If we
allow our thoughts to dwell on the object of gratification (be
it a person
or thing), and on how good we will feel when we get what we
want, we will
further stimulate our feelings until they seemingly overwhelm us and
convince us
to do their bidding. In this frame of mind, we are not thinking about
right and
wrong. Our focus is on obtaining that which will soothe or gratify our
aroused
feelings. Driven by our feelings, we give in to temptation and
foolishly choose
what we know is wrong. In doing or obtaining whatever it was we wanted
to do to
satisfy ourselves, we sin.
Sin
almost
always gratifies our feelings for the moment. It pays its debt of
promised
pleasure, profit, power, possessions, fame, or security. But it also
produces long-lasting
destruction in our life and unnecessary suffering in the lives of
everyone
affected by our selfishly sinful choices. God has lovingly and wisely
given us
an intellect and a conscience to resist temptation and do what is
right. (Note:
James 1:13-15)
What
is the
source of quarrels, conflicts, and hostility? Where do you suppose
these things
come from? If you look carefully, you will see they come from our
irrational
fears and selfish desires, our impulses, and our passions. Our craving
for what
we do not have is fed by our jealousy and envy of what others have.
Consequently, in our frustrated condition we feel angry toward anyone
who keeps
us from getting what we want. In our anger we pull out our big guns, be
they
strong words or emotional outbursts or pouting or temporary alienation
or
physical abuse to get our way. The truth is, we resort to selfish means
of
getting what we want because we do not ask God for it. And when we do
ask God,
most of the time we do not get the answer we want because our requests
are
essentially selfish. We rarely ask for things that will help us die to
self,
grow into mature Christians, and be more Christ-like. We seldom ask for
things
that will help us love God with all our being and love those around us
as we
ought. Most often we ask God for things that will gratify our own
selfish,
excessive, or unnatural desires, impulses, and passions. Too often we
ask God
for things that will protect our irrational and exaggerated fears. What
folly
to live as slaves of our feelings.
If
we would,
we could control them through the proper use of our intellect and
conscience,
the empowering and enabling provisions of God for godly living, and the
indwelling presence of God’s Holy Spirit – which in
turn would lead to asking
for good things from God, and He would give them to us. (Note: James
4:1-4)
The
truth is,
we do not have to live under the tyranny of our feelings. God, through
Christ,
has given us His greatest and most precious promises to overcome the
powerful
influence that our feelings exert on our will. He has given us His Holy
Spirit,
prayer, the Bible, the local church, and a number of other things
necessary for
living a sensible, rational, godly life. He made these wonderful gifts
available
to us so we can break the enslaving power of our feelings and become
partakers
of His divine nature. If we will make use of all that God has provided
for
godly living, and use our intellect and conscience as God intended, we
will
become the loving people He created us to be – people who
thoughtfully and
persistently promote and protect the good of everyone affected by our
choices
and behavior.
Yet
at the
same time, do not ignore your feelings. God has given them to us to
make life
more enjoyable, and to enrich our relationships. However, keep your
feelings in
subjection to what you know is right through the proper use of your
intellect
and conscience. In doing this, you will avoid many temptations to sin,
and then
the way into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ will be wide
open to
you. (Note: II Peter 1:4-11)
Therefore,
prepare yourself – through wise praying, honest
self-examination, the study and
application of God’s Word, along with the encouragement and
help of other
believers – to flee from irrational fears, youthful passions,
false beliefs,
distrust of God, and daily temptations. Make a plan, work your plan,
and invite
one or more other believers to support you in working your plan in
order to
persistently and progressively pursue righteousness, faith, love, and
peace
with those who trust God and pursue godliness from a sincere and pure
heart.
(Note: II Timothy 2:22)
I
do not wish
to discredit intuition or the use of feelings as a form of intuition.
My
purpose is to reinforce that even here, the person relying on
feelings/intuition uses his or her intellect to determine if the
feelings/intuition are credible, and if they fit within their value
system. If
these feelings/intuition are deemed credible and fit within their value
system,
then they decide what action, if any, they will take. In other words,
they give
their intellect (and hopefully their conscience, too)
authority over
their feelings/intuition. They decide which intuitions are rational,
reasonable, and worthy of their attention. If they don’t,
they leave themselves
open to times of irrational or inappropriate or even ungodly behavior.
The
fact that
feelings and sin are so easily united does not diminish or remove
distrust of
God and self-centeredness as the primary drivers behind sin. However,
because
feelings are a powerful force, they too must be reckoned with if we are
to
maintain a godly mindset in the face of temptation. Therefore, God
directs us
to set our mind on God’s interests (Matthew 16:23), to set
our mind on the
things above (Colossians 3:2), to be transformed by the renewing of our
mind
(Romans 12:2), to be sensible (Titus 1,2), and to think on right things
(Philippians 4:8). It is in the proper use of our mind (as described in
the
aforementioned scriptures) that we able to distinguish between feelings
which
are directing us toward God and those which are feeding our desire for
self-interest. For this reason, the best protection against temptation
and sin
is the proper use of our Biblically aligned, God enlightened, Spirit
led
intellect and conscience.
Once
again,
God created feelings and emotions for our good and the advancement of
His
purposes. Let us not despise them, but neither let us misuse them.
What
are you doing with your
feelings? Are you pretending they do not exist? Are you giving them
free reign
over your will? Are you controlling them through the use of your
intellect and
conscience?
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