The Gift of Emotions
Download MP3Welcome to a place of peace, hope, and divine encouragement. This is Joy in Every Step with your host, beloved preacher, retired teacher, and faithful through the valleys or dancing on the mountaintops, Sarita's voice will guide you back to his promises step by step. So open your heart, settle your spirit, and take the next step in faith with joy in every step.
Sarita Bernadette:Hi I'm Sarita Bernadette and welcome back to another episode of Joy in Every Step. I'm glad you're here. We are living through some challenging times. It's okay to say that beloved it is what it is. God is aware of what's going on and I guarantee you none of this has taken him by surprise.
Sarita Bernadette:He's not offended when we acknowledge the things we struggle with in our lives. At the same time, we know that God has promised to always be with us, right? He promised to be with us and the Word of God goes further in Jeremiah 2nine 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans for your welfare and not for harm to give you a future with hope. So he's not just present he has a plan for each of us which includes hope and a future.
Sarita Bernadette:Then in Romans eight twenty eight it says, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. So the Lord promises to work it all out for our good according to his purpose. Knowing that he is with us and that he's working things out gives us confidence or Godfidence remember that word? Gives us Godfidence as we meet life's challenges. It doesn't mean that we float through this life oblivious to the events of this world either.
Sarita Bernadette:We read in Genesis that God created the world and humans in his image and in that moment he declared that it was all good. God gave us the capacity to feel. Our emotions are a gift from God. As a matter of fact, God's holy emotions are on display throughout His Word. I'm going to list just a few examples for you.
Sarita Bernadette:Compassion Exodus 3three 19 and he said I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name the Lord and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. That's compassion. Then we see anger in Deuteronomy six fourteen-fifteen. Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, because the Lord your God who is present with you is a jealous God. The anger of the Lord your God would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth.
Sarita Bernadette:Sounds like anger to me. Then grief. Ephesians four thirty And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. God is capable of feeling grief. Then love, love.
Sarita Bernadette:Jeremiah 30 one:three The Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. We thank him for his love then Zephaniah three seventeen joy joy it says the Lord your God is in your midst a warrior who gives victory He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will renew you in his love.
Sarita Bernadette:He will exalt over you with loud singing. I love that one. Hebrews one and three reminds us that Jesus is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being. John one and eighteen tells us that the Son has made the Father known. In John fourteen:nine Jesus said, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
Sarita Bernadette:And then Paul wrote in Colossians one fifteen, He is the image of the invisible God. So just like the Father Jesus demonstrated a full range of emotion. The emotions of Jesus were always perfect. They were perfect in harmony and in balance. I believe he was our example of what it should look like when emotions are expressed.
Sarita Bernadette:Here are some of the emotions of Jesus shown in the Bible. I won't read all of the verses so please just take a look at them on your own time. We see joy when he pleased his father that's in Luke ten twenty one. We see exhaustion in John four and six when he sat down at that well and met that now famous woman he was tired. The apostles John and Luke both recorded anger and disgust shown by Jesus when he entered the temple in Jerusalem and drove out the merchants and the money changers.
Sarita Bernadette:We read about his sorrow in John eleven thirty five. Beloved, the scripture says he wept. Jesus showed compassion and empathy in Matthew nine thirty six and Mark six thirty four as he went about healing the sick and teaching the crowds gathered to hear him. We also read about his frustration in Matthew seventeen seventeen when the faith of the disciples wasn't enough to heal a boy having seizures. We see the agony and anguish of Jesus in Luke twenty two and forty four as he prayed on the Mount Of Olives in anticipation of the crucifixion.
Sarita Bernadette:And of course we see him demonstrate forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer found in Matthew six twelve where he teaches to ask for forgiveness of our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. And in his prayer from the cross he says, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. That's in Luke twenty-three 34. So if the emotions of God the Father and his son Jesus were shown to us in the word of God, we can expect to experience the same. At this particular time there are things going on that pull on our attention and if we're being honest our emotions are on high alert right now.
Sarita Bernadette:We can find ourselves reacting to things instead of responding. We have to be careful because there is a difference. Listen, indulge me for just a moment. The Latin root of react is back, to do, perform which means you're taking action back at something or someone. In contrast, the Latin root of respond is back answer which means you're answering back to something or someone usually in words.
Sarita Bernadette:Reacting tends to be quick and often engages our negative emotions. Think about it. It leaves out our ability to consider the matter fully. That takes time. When we pause and take the time to respond we can engage in deliberate thinking and thoughtful, thoughtful decision making.
Sarita Bernadette:This helps us to control emotions and helps us to control our our behavioral responses to the situations that we face. Responding rather than reacting leads to more sensible and reasonable outcomes. Yes, there is scriptural support for this and you can find it in James one nineteen-twenty. It reads, You must understand this my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger for human anger does not produce God's righteousness.
Sarita Bernadette:There it is. Galatians five twenty three lists self control as a fruit of the spirit enabling believers to manage their emotions by the power of God. Self control. Spiritual self control is mastering our desires, our emotions, and our actions by relying on God's power rather than depending on our own human strength. We need the Lord's guidance as we seek to manage our emotions, beloved.
Sarita Bernadette:You'll notice if you go back and you read those scriptural accounts listed earlier, the emotions displayed were appropriate for the situation and they were under control. They were under control. We see many additional verses in the Word of God about managing emotions. Ephesians four verses 26 through 27 it says, Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil.
Sarita Bernadette:Wow! Proverbs fifteen and eighteen Those who are hot tempered stir up strife but those who are slow to anger calm contention. Philippians four:six-seven Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Colossians three fifteen and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful, it says. Be thankful.
Sarita Bernadette:The Word would not give us that kind of guidance if it wasn't valuable. The counsel provided helps us with something called emotional intelligence or EI. Perhaps you've heard this term or you've seen it or read about it or maybe even studied it a bit. I believe it's another one of those instances where science meets the Bible. God designed it all.
Sarita Bernadette:God makes it clear that he has given us the capacity to both understand and manage our emotions and empathize with others. We are to reflect his image, beloved, as we fulfill his command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Yes, friends, God gave us these emotions and they do indeed serve a purpose. So let's zero in on one in particular today. One that I've personally dealt with in the past few months and I'm aware that there are others out there who are experiencing the same thing and that emotion is grief.
Sarita Bernadette:Grief. Last week I flipped my Bible open and it landed in the book of Lamentations. Now again indulge me for a bit here. A lament is an expression of grief, sorrow, pain, or confusion. If you grew up in church you might have been hard pressed to always show up with a smile on your face.
Sarita Bernadette:When asked how you were, you'd say, Oh, I'm blessed. I'm highly favored of the Lord. Or you'd say, All is well. I'm good. As believers, we're taught that lamenting, expressing sorrow, pain, or confusion, is not really looked upon favorably by God because it's seen as a lack of faith.
Sarita Bernadette:But there I was looking at this book in the Word of God. It's a whole book. Why would it be included if it didn't have something to teach us, right? For those of us whose lives are relatively easy perhaps lament may seem foreign or even unnecessary but for the rest of us, the rest of us we go through hardships, we experience loss, we see injustices taking place, and it affects us. We find our hearts saddened at times.
Sarita Bernadette:Lamentations is a book that describes the devastation of Jerusalem after its people have been conquered by the Babylonians. The community was sorrowful and suffering. Lamentations captures their desperate appeal to God in the face of desolation. So back to my encounter. I landed on the personal application section at the beginning of the book of Lamentations and my eyes went to that first line there because I have study bible I like to study from and there it was.
Sarita Bernadette:Here it is. It says, The best way to survive grief is to express it. It needs to be shared with others and with God. There is therapeutic value in working through each aspect of sorrow. Beloved, I'm telling you God is familiar with our pain and sorrow.
Sarita Bernadette:He says he's close to the brokenhearted. As I read further into the chapter, this verse in the second chapter resonated with me. It's Lamentations two eighteen. It says, The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord, you walls of daughter Zion, let your tears flow like a river day and night give yourself no relief your eyes no rest this verse invites us to pour our hearts out to God It teaches us that it's okay to cry out to God for comfort, for mercy, and for restoration. The end of the verse needs some context and I want to add that here.
Sarita Bernadette:I want to make this clear to you all. The book of Lamentations is in the Old Testament. The people of God at that time were still under the law, meaning they were in a position of guilt and they had to do certain things to earn the favor of God. Therefore you see in the verse it says, Let your tears flow like a river day and night and give yourself no relief, your eyes no rest. Beloved, we are living under grace, God's unmerited favor.
Sarita Bernadette:There's nothing we can do to earn it. It's freely given. So we do not have to cry out in the same way those under the law did. Our forgiveness is not performance based. We're justified through our faith in Jesus Christ.
Sarita Bernadette:Jesus told us in Matthew eleven twenty eight, Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. So we can take our worries, our concerns, and yes, even our grief to Him. We allow Him to guide us through. That's how we find relief. It's okay to lament or to cry out to the Lord but we don't get to stay there.
Sarita Bernadette:We can't get stuck. In Psalm eighteen:six King David wrote, In my distress I called upon the Lord to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice and my cry to him reached his ears. I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. He writes in Psalm 30 four:four, I sought the Lord and he answered me.
Sarita Bernadette:He delivered me from all my fears. Again I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered. So there again in the Word of God we're reminded to be honest with the Lord about what we're experiencing and we can be assured that he will answer and he will deliver. In Psalm 121 verses one to two the writer expresses I lift up my eyes to the hills from where will my help come from My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. I love that verse of scripture.
Sarita Bernadette:The Lord is telling us to stay focused on him. He is our help. Psalm 13nine 13 For it was you who formed my inward parts you knit me together in my mother's womb. My Lord, there is joy, beloved, joy in knowing our emotions are God given. They're both beneficial and they're beautiful.
Sarita Bernadette:God understands them and He helps us to manage them. You've been listening to Joy in Every Step. I'm Sarita Bernadette and I'm grateful you chose to spend some time here with me. You can find Joy in Every Step wherever you listen to your podcasts and give us a follow there. Do check out the website at joyineverystep.org.
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