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Joyce Meyer - Emotions


TOPICS: Emotions

Everybody has emotions. Well, at least, most people do. Some people you think could use having a few more but we're gonna start with the people who just have an abundance of them and they tend to be led and guided by them, rather than being guided by the Spirit. So our emotions do not tell us the truth. They tell us how we feel. Your mind doesn't necessarily tell you the truth unless it's been totally renewed by the Word of God. Your mind and my mind tells us what we think.

And so probably more than anything else, people tell me and they tell you and when you're talking to each other you talk about and I talk about what we want, what we think, and how we feel. Well, interestingly enough, all of that, unless it's closely guided by the Holy Spirit, is part of what the Bible calls "The flesh".

What I think doesn't necessarily tell me what God thinks or what His Word says. What I feel doesn't necessarily tell me what God would have me do in a situation, and what I want may not be what God wants.

Now, we improve in those areas the more we study the word and the more we learn to walk according to the word, but I can tell you even after being in church many, many years, back in the '70s when I got into what I call a more serious relationship with God, and I love to talk about that because, to be honest, you can be a christian and you can go to church a couple of times a week and you might read your Bible a little bit and still not be real serious in your walk with God.

When people get serious about their relationship with God, they're not just interested in what God can do for them, but they're interested in what they can do for God. They want to be the kind of person that God can use, that God is working through them to help other people.

You know, I love doing things for my kids and I will always do things for my kids but I'll tell you, I reached a point where I just thought, "I'd like you to do something for me". Now, all my kids are great and they do a lot of stuff for us but it's just the truth.

You know, that baby stage of Christianity is all about me, me, me, me, me. What can you do for me? But maturity begins to see that it has a responsibility and it begins to want to know what it can do then for the one who's helped them so much.

So the Bible says that we have emotions, we have thoughts, we have a will, and what God's desire is for us is that we use our will to choose his will. He's not gonna make us do what's right. He's given us free choice because He doesn't want robots who have no choice but to serve Him. He wants us to come to the point where we can even say, "You know, God, this is what I want but if it's not what You want, then please don't give it to me". Has anybody started praying like that yet? Okay, that's the wise way to pray.

And we also grow to the point where, even though we have our own thoughts and we have our own feelings, we know that we can't be led and guided by that if they don't agree with the Word of God.

So let me just say that you're never gonna not have feelings. You're going to have feelings. You're going to have emotions. And sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're there when you need them; sometimes they're there when you want 'em; sometimes they're there when you don't want 'em.

You may feel like doing something when you go to bed at night. Get up the next morning and not feel like doing it anymore. And so we have to learn that we have feelings but we cannot let them have us. There's a difference. We have to learn how to manage our emotions.

And because emotions are so prevalent, I read and study in that area a fair amount, and I recently have been reading a book by a gentleman who's probably gone home to be with the lord 100 years ago but I love the fact that the word never gets old.

Matter of fact, a lot of the most important things I've learned, I've learned from people that left the planet years and years and years ago. So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to write so many books and leave that legacy and that heritage to people that will come after me because I know that the things that I'm teaching now will be just as valuable 100 years from now as they are right now.

But one of the things that this man said and it's not anything that I don't know but it just was something that I needed to be reminded of, and maybe you need to be reminded of this too today.

He said, "Watch your emotions and notice how easily they are affected by so many different things. If you don't sleep well, you're likely to be more emotional the next day. If you don't feel well, you're likely to be more emotional the next day"...

My point is, is that things that people do or don't do can affect us emotionally. How other people behave can affect us emotionally. What kind of appreciation people give you or don't give you can affect us emotionally.

So because our feelings seem to be so affected by so many different things, I think it would be just a good little study class to take a week and just maybe pay a little bit of attention to when they're up and when they're down and what seems to be causing both.
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