YOUR EMOTIONS SERVE A PURPOSE

Saturday, 23rd January 2021

Mark 12:29-30 – “The most important one,” answered Jesus, … Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

God wants you to love Him passionately: with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. God wants more than your head knowledge. He wants an emotional relationship with you.

Some facts about emotions.

First, God has emotions. God is an emotional God. He feels joy, grief, pain, and hatred toward sin. The only reason you have emotions is because you’re made in God’s image.

Second, your ability to feel is a gift from God. Emotions are what make you human. It is your emotional ability that allows you to love and be faithful and loyal and kind and generous and experience all of those feelings that are attached to the good things in life. Your emotions may not always seem like a gift, but even the negative ones have a purpose in your life.

Third, there are two extremes to avoid. Emotionalism is the extreme of saying the only thing that matters in life is how you feel, not what you think or what’s right or wrong. Emotions control your life.

On the other hand, stoicism says feelings aren’t important at all, and that it doesn’t really matter how you feel. The only things that matter are your intellect and your will.

These 2 extremes are to be avoided. God gave you your emotions for a reason, and He wants you to worship him emotionally with all your heart and intellectually with all your mind.