Untitled Emotion
This post could be many different things. Today, however, I want to say something about our overall "emotions". That almost seems like a bad word or bad behavior and often times is frowned upon to show your emotion. In that, I believe we become sterile to a point, un-human and can become inhumane. When we learn to dismiss emotion rather than bring them under submission we fail as human beings, as counselors, as pastors, as friends. When we tell others, "Jesus wept" but then got over it and just went on, or he dismissed his emotion of "nevertheless Father, not my will but Yours be done", we present a LIE. The Word of God speaks to this in Hebrews chapter 4. Verse 1 begins with emotion..."let us be terrified of the possibility that, even though the promise of entering his rest remains, any one of you might be judged to have fallen short of it;" (Complete Jewish Bible) Here we have the emotion but with a direction to either cause us to act to not fall short of it, i.e. repent or to continue in it, i.e. be penitent. It gives us a reason to be "confident" which, though not perhaps an emotion, it involves an emotion, and the two cannot and should not be separated. If we continue reading, we may look upon some who dismissed the emotion. Hebrews 4:2 says, "for Good News has also been proclaimed to us, just as it was to them. But the message they heard didn't do them any good, because those who heard it did not combine it with trust", which in also connected to emotion yet is not perhaps an emotion so much as it is a decision to put the terror under submission to trust Christ more than our goodness and more than our emotion. (CJB)
What if God dismissed Himself from emotion? V3, "And in my anger, I swore that they would not enter my rest" (CJB), yet because God himself submitted his anger to himself and that which he is (love), He gave us a way to submit our emotion. Read V3 from the beginning. "For it is we who have trusted who enter the rest." (CJB) I would so far as to say the dismissal of emotion is the hardening of the heart. V6 says, "Therefore, since it still remains for some to enter it, and those who received the Good News earlier did not enter, he again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David, so long afterwards, in the text already given, "Today, if you hear God's voice, don't harden your hearts." (CJB) Here is emotion put under submission or subjection to trusting. Overcoming emotionalism and putting it under submission to truth and to trust is not a dismissal of it, but a resetting of it. It is telling your emotion to repent to trust, not just believe, as trust involves action but it also involves and includes emotions.
It is ok to have emotion and be emotional, but ultimately we are called to bring those emotions under submission to trust. Do not harden your heart and dismiss the emotion, let it lead you to trust, to action, to prayer and yes, to repentance so that it can brought under submission.
People who have or are dismissing emotion as irrelevant are admonished to not do so in the Word of God...IF they/we are to be like our High Priest. V 15 says, "For we do not have a cohen gadol unable to empathize with our weaknesses; since in every respect he was tempted just as we are, the only difference being that he did not sin". Jesus can "empathize" because he felt it and did not dismiss it, but he also stayed in a place of repentance and submitted it to God which is why he did not sin. However, Jesus did it perfectly and we are still learning to not sin, but while not submitting to being immersed in repentance, nor in his authority to forgive.
Finally, Hebrews 4 closes out with, "Therefore, let us confidently approach the throne from which God gives grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace in our time of need". (CJB) This is all about emotion put under trust, yet acknowledging both. We come confidently because of HIM, not our trust, nor emotion, nor the dismissal of our emotion as a "proof" of our "trust". We come confidently because our trust has surpassed our emotion or at the very least, our emotion has been submitted to trust and we come with both. We come to God...no one else because no one else is able to give that which we need in our trust or emotion...His grace and His mercy to find that grace; and if I may say so, if we have dismissed our emotion we would not know, "our time of need". (CJB)
Trust Him, Turn to Him, Repent and remain Repentant, Don't harden your hearts, Confidently approach Our Father and receive grace and mercy
