Creflo Dollar - Dealing With Your Emotions
Go with me to the book of 3 John, 3 John chapter 2. And tonight, I'm gonna start a pretty lengthy series on, you know, dealing with your emotions. And one of the reasons I thought it was time to do this is because the world going crazy. And I'm just every day it's just, you know, it's just some of the most unbelievable stuff you've ever heard of before in your life and that's because people do not understand that they can control their emotions. What people are doing, a situation or circumstance will arise and they just think, "Well, whatever emotions show up, that's just how it is".
And I I'm telling you that a lot of things that happen in your life as Christians, you see, on the other hand Christian people don't think they have emotions. Christian people are, you know, think that their emotionless. But in this series, you're gonna see before the law, before the covenant of grace, you're gonna see God judging Israel because they didn't show or demonstrate great emotions towards him and joyfulness. They didn't do that and then a curse came over their lives. Well, that won't happen for us today because we're no longer under that covenant, but we need to learn how to harness, control, have authority, and to master our emotions.
Now, here's the thing about it, we'll start off with this, we all have them, don't we? And I think that's the first truth you have to deal with, that we all have emotions. We have emotions, but there are times when emotions have us. We have emotions, and God intended for us to have emotions, for us to be in control, harness, and to have authority over our emotions. But he never intended for emotions to drive and to govern your life. And I'll show you in this series, I mean you have to deal with, you know, the emotions of depression, and rejection, and inferiority. I mean, what do you do when you're overwhelmed with these emotions? Because I'm telling you, let me go ahead and define emotions here.
I'll do it again, emotions our feelings on the inside designed to move you in a direction, feelings on the inside designed to move you in a direction. And if those emotions can move you in a direction away from the will of God for your life, if those emotions can move in a direction towards something that will kill, steal and destroy in your life, then all of a sudden, learning how to master those emotions, learning how to harness and control those emotions, it becomes paramount, especially in the life of a Christian because I'mma tell you something, that that's where the enemy is going to operate. That's where he's going to function to try to, number one, keep you away from the call of God over your life, keep you away from reaching the will of God for your life. It's gonna be as simple as, let's present a circumstance, or a situation, and hopefully they will allow the circumstance and situation to shape their emotions, to determine whether those emotions is gonna be good or bad and then if I can make that happen, then he can move you towards sin, destruction, and death.
I'm almost gonna show you in this series, you know, I was just so, I love coming in, do a Bible study. And I'm like, you know, there's some people who are very committed in coming in to a Bible study. And I'm telling you, this is such an eye opener. Once you begin to see this, see, psychology is trying to deal with your problems without God. They don't believe in the Spirit portion of a man. They believe in the mental and the emotional, but they don't believe in the Spirit portion of a man. And there is, there is power that's been invested in your Spirit man that can set you apart from what everybody else goes through.
So, in this series, I'm gonna show you how to deal with depression. It's not gonna be just the mental and the emotional principles of dealing with depression. We're gonna draw from your human, born-again spirit, praise God, and you stand apart from everybody else. And while they're going through depression and almost getting ready to kill themselves, if that same thing hits you, you will deal with it according to the Spirit and the Word of God, and you'll have victory every time in your life, amen. And so, emotions, we all have them but the key is, the key objective is to not let emotions take charge of your life. You should not be governed by your feelings. You should not be led, and you should not have your feelings as your guide. You should make sure that the Holy Spirit and God's Word is the guide and the leader of your life.
So, we were designed by God to master life, rather than life mastering us. Can you agree with that? We were made in the image of God to reflect his power. We were made in the image of God to reflect his love. We were made in the image of God to reflect his authority in this earth and it starts with our emotions. It starts with our emotions. Now, in 3 John chapter... let's go 3 John, you have just one chapter here. 3 John, let's look at verse 2. All right, he says, and read it out loud with me if you have it. "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy"? Even as thy, what? "Thy soul prospers". But look at this in the New Living Translation. He says, "I want you to prosper, and I want you to be in health". Now, this word "prosperity" here is dealing with, I want you to be whole, all right? He says, "I want you to prosper. I want you to be in health". And he says that's gonna happen only if your soul can prosper, soul prosperity.
Now, let's look at the anatomy of a man, a human. Man is a spirit, he didn't have one. He is a spirit. Say out loud, "I am a spirit-being". He possesses a soul. Say, "I have a soul". Now, you know, some of you may have come from churches that use the word "soul" and "spirit" interchangeably, as if they're one, and they're referring to, "Oh, your soul's gonna be in heaven". Well, that's partly true, but the spirit and soul are not the same. They're not to be used interchangeably. You are a spirit, you have a soul. Your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions. Your soul is your thinker, your filler, your chooser. All of that is located in the soul portion of the anatomy of a man. You are a spirit, you have a soul. Say out loud, "I am a spirit-being. I possess a soul, and I live in a body".
Okay, so what happens so you can understand death, when a person dies, the real person, you can't kill a spirit. You can't kill the spirit. When you die, there's a separation of your spirit and your soul. Somebody says, "Well, why is your soul going"? 'Cause that's your thinker, your filler, your chooser. Your soul is going so that we'll know one another when we get to heaven. Are we gonna know one another when we get to heaven? You gonna know one another when you get to texting? Yeah, so your spirit and soul, absent from the body, and if you're saved, present with the Lord, okay? So basically, I'm not, you know, I'm just saying, you know, all the screaming and stuff we're doing if a person's saved, of course, you're gonna miss them. But if they're saved, they're more alive out of their body than they were when they were in their body, and they will get a new body that has no limitations. Glory be to God, amen?
Now, you are a spirit-being. You possess a soul. You live in the body. Now, your soul is in the middle of your body and your spirit so when you got born again, the new creation came on the inside of you and in order for it to be seen in your body and in the physical world, what happens in your soul area is going to determine. Your soul's got to line up with your born-again spirit, and if your born-again spirit and your soul line up together, then it'll make your body, your body just submit. It will make your body do what it needs to do. Okay, well I'm not talking about spirit, soul, and body. I just want to show you your soul is the compartment that contains your emotions. Your soul is the area that contains your, your feeler, your thinker, your chooser. Your feelings are within the area of the soul so when you read that understanding this. In the living translation it says, "Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit".
Now again, I wanted to show you this because there's obviously some confusion with the translators, concerning the tripartite being of man. They still want to use soul and spirit interchangeably, as if they're the same. Now, look at the Amplified Bible. They're not the same. You have a spirit, you are a spirit, you are a spirit-being, you possess a soul, you live in a physical body. The part of you that got born again is your spirit man. Now, the Amplified says, "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way". How many of you want to prosper in every way? I mean, you want to prosper physically, you want to prosper in your soul, you want to prosper in your family, you want to prosper in your finance, you want to be whole, right? So, that's what he's saying. "I pray that you prosper in every way". What's that called? Being whole. "I pray that you'll be whole in every way and that your body may keep well".
How many want your body to keep well, amen? "Even as I know," watch this, "your soul keeps well and prospers". So, if I were your enemy and I wanted to impact and mess up your life, I would attack you in the area of your soul. I would keep constant pressure on the thing that can move you. Your feelings will move you in directions, good or bad. They will move. They are feelings on the inside. That's what emotions are, feelings on the inside designed to move you. Jesus had these emotions. I'll show you in this series where Jesus was, was stressed, and pressed, and all this fear and stuff was coming over him when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. I mean, it came over him. His emotions were out there and I'm telling you, he-you'll see what he did to reel them back in, just like your emotions are gonna be out there. You know, you come to church, you high and praying in tongues, that's great, but you can stay there 24/7. And they're gonna be circumstances and situations that you see and when you see those circumstances and situations that begin to try to govern.
Now remember, if you move in a direction to cuss somebody out, it started with those emotions. If you moved in a direction to bless somebody, it started with those emotion, same situation, but you're gonna always have a choice in how you're emotions can direct you to do that, or how your emotions can direct you to do that. But there's no such thing as the emotions automatically making you do something that you can't control and that you don't have authority over. In fact, I say this, I told I told my kids this, anybody, anybody that cannot control their emotions are the weakest individuals on the planet. At that time when you cannot control your emotions, you are the weakest individual on the planet. Most people are in jail right now because they could not control their emotions. People are divorced right now because they could not control their emotions.
There are people who ended up, you know, dead because they could not control their emotions. If they could back up, there are lots of things that they could see the end of it and then just go back, it was their emotions that moved them to do something that got them killed, or put them in a situation. And I am telling you how in the world the church can go so long and nobody talks about emotions. I don't know how we did it, but we're gonna spend an ample amount of time dealing with this. So, based on this Scripture, as goes your soul, so goes your life. As goes your soul, so goes your life. So, as your soul goes, the rest of your life will follow.
So, God created us to be in control. And now listen to that word 'cause it can be used negatively. He created us to be in control of these emotions, and he created us to be in control as he is. However, in our failure to control ourself, we attempt to control others to feel, you know, that superiority that God actually gave us over all of the creation, but we took that control and we tried to control people. God gave you this superiority so you can have control over all the creation, have authority over all creation, but not have control over one another. And so, let me use this before I go on because this issue of control, it needs to be talked about. Mastering your emotions doesn't mean not having emotions. God gave you emotions. Say out loud, "I have emotions, God gave them to me". God designed us to express passion and he designed us to express emotions, but sin, and the devil, and the curse have perverted these emotions so that they will hurt us and hurt others around us.
Now, let's kind of dig into some practical things of where it comes from and this is how this works. This is how this works. You get up in the morning and throughout the day, you're exposed to something. Listen, when you wake up in the morning, if you turn on "Good Morning America," you're going to be exposed to something. If you turn the radio on, you're going to be exposed to something. Now, that's where it all starts. Everything starts with your choice of the exposure that you're gonna allow your attention to be given to. What are you exposed to? All right now, so here's what happens. You're gonna be exposed. All throughout the day you're gonna be exposed to all kinds of stuff.
Now, whatever you're exposed to will govern how you think, so this is the anatomy of light. I wrote a book on this some years back. Whatever you're exposed to will determine how you think. You don't believe me, go exposure yourself to something. It'll determine how you think. If you expose yourself to a lot of cussin', you know, when you are confronted with a situation, that's been deposited. That becomes one of the multiple choices that you might choose because that's been deposit in your head. If you're the guy that goes and looks at porn and you think, "Well, I'm not doing anybody any harm," not yet, but it becomes an option because now it's a deposit that's being made. So, what are you, again, what we've been talking about, what have you been giving your attention to the most? So, whatever you expose yourself to determines how you think.
Now, what does this have to do with your emotions? Well, watch this, how you think determines how you feel. Your feelings are governed by your thinking, and what you think about all the time is determining how you feel. Somebody says, "I feel depressed". Well, if you want to know why you feel depressed, go back and see what you've been thinking on. You've been thinking on something that's causing you feel that way. Feelings can be controlled and dominated, if you will understand where they come from. The way you feel comes from what you've been thinking about. "Oh, I'm depressed," or, "Oh, I don't feel good". Why, what have you been thinking about? "Well, I've been thinking about this bill due and I ain't got no money to pay the bill, and I don't know how to pay the bill". And you're not thinking about the right thing. Just because the situation exists doesn't mean you have to let it stay in your head and think about it and then it governs your emotions.
Now, watch what happens. Once it gets into your emotions, your emotions are now designed to move you 'cause the next step is making a decision. You're exposed to something, it impacts your thinking, whatever you think impacts your feelings, your emotions. Whatever you feel, your emotions will impact your decisions. Now, imagine making wrong emotional decisions. Imagine making a decision to marry somebody that you don't even love, but emotionally, emotionally, you know, you've been thinking about something. Well, you've been exposed to this dude. He look like he, you know, gonna take care of you, he look like he like you kinda. And then and then, you know, you've been thinking about this dude and now you got feelings about the dude. And now you get ready to make a decision to marry him based on how you feel and not based on any type of research investment, answers to questions. You feel like he like you.
What the heck that mean? I feel like he... does he love you? "I feel like it". What? You can't make decisions? You would be surprised the number of people who have made emotional decisions to get married. There's some people who've made emotional decisions because they spend all their life dreaming of the storybook wedding, and all they cared about was the storybook wedding. Well, you could have invited a whole bunch of friends at church and just put on a play. You didn't have to actually mess your whole life up because of a storybook wedding. Are you follow what I'm saying? So, look at what's happening. Those emotions have now gotten involved in your decision making and decision is an open door into reality.
So, if you've been exposed to bad things that's making you think bad things, that's causing you to feel bad, now you make emotions from that, look at where the emotions have taken you down a bad path because right after you make an emotional decision, your emotions now are gonna determine your actions, your actions are gonna determine your habits, your habits are gonna create your character, and your character is gonna determine your destination. So, everybody is where they are today based on what they were exposed to, what caused them to think that way, and then the emotions took you there. Your emotions took you there. You don't think this is important? You check out, you know, where you are.
You know, if somebody says, "Well, I don't agree with that, you know, because my problems, I got financial problems". Oh, back up. When you made all those emotional decisions, buying a car you can't afford because that's what you always wanted at the time. Instead of taking that $800 car note and applying it to a house, and you can get the call later. You ain't but 24. You can get the car later, but an emotional decision is responsible for bringing on debt and lack just what you were telling me about. An emotional decision, "Well, I gotta have something right now so I'll just rent right now". And you don't think about well, I'm renting, and I'm renting and five years go by, and 10 years go by, and 15 years ago, 20 years go by. You could have owned the thing after 20 years. "No, but I wanted this one right here".
Listen, I learned a long time ago whatever you see in one spot, there's probably something better in another spot if you just won't let your emotions put you somewhere you don't need to be. Every issue, every issue. You got angry and said something to your wife that hurt her feelings, you know, you think, "Well, the divorce wasn't my part". No, your emotions moved you in that direction and where you sit, if it's in jail, you know, you had a car accident and, you know, the Holy Spirit said just stay in the car till the police come. No, you know, you get out the car because "I don't know who you think you are hitting my car".
Slam the door, and you show up and then you get out of the car, and then they get out and then they said something to you or talking about your mama. Then you hit them, and now they press charges on you for battery and you're in jail. But it's Friday night, judge is gone until Tuesday. And then the boss tells you, "Do not miss or be late again for work or we're gonna have to let you go". And that you're in jail and you can't get to work, and now you're unemployed and you're in jail. And all of these things happened because your emotions took you there, 'cause you couldn't control them, 'cause you couldn't harness your emotions, 'cause you could not master your emotions.