Emotions: Friend or Foe?

Christian Working Woman Transcript

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Our emotions are the spark plugs that cause us to act. When we are emotional about the right things, we act correctly.

However, there are many people who are very emotionally committed to action, but their emotions are not based on truth. People involved in cults are often devoted and emotional about their religion, but it is based on lies and is not true to the Bible. So, the intensity of emotions doesn't mean a person is responding to some great truth. Our emotions can be very strong and very wrong.

If you, as a believer, are not continually immersing yourself in God's Word, it is highly likely that you are often emotional over something that is not true. You can be easily misled. So, we must first know the truth of God's Holy Word for our lives so that we are not reacting to wrong input.

However, just knowing truth as an end in itself doesn't really make a big difference, does it? We are to know truth in order to guide us into proper action. Truth should cause us to set our will to act in some decisive way.

That's when our emotions should be playing their important role. When Jesus saw the multitude in need, He was moved to compassion. Compassion is an emotion that moved Jesus to act–in this case, to heal people. He set His will to react to the emotion of compassion.

Many people are confronted with some truth which moves them emotionally, but that's all it does. You see, the strong feelings generated by the emotional reaction don't usually last too long. They should cause us to set our will to act, but the action frequently is done after those emotions have subsided. Unfortunately, all too often our wills go out the door once the emotion dies down.

In order to react to the truth that has stirred our emotions, we have to set our will at that moment and determine by God's grace to respond. That takes discipline; it takes commitment. The emotions give us the dream and the vision, but if we never set that will and make plans to do, then nothing happens.

God knows we need some dreamers and visionaries, but we've got to get beyond the vision to the action.