Kingship and Lordship | Submitting Our Feelings to The Lord
In today’s post modern culture, we seem to place a high amount of emphasis on how a person feels. People often make decisions based on how they feel and gauge the truthfulness of a situation or scenario on their emotions rather than on facts. Emotions and how we feel do play a role in our relationship with Christ, but it may not been the role we have assigned it. Emotions serve as an indicator of what is going on in our heart but make terrible guides for the best course of action. Emotional decisions rarely produce sound practices, largely because they ignore all rationality and thinking in the process. Yet, we cannot ignore the state of our heart or the things we feel. These reveal to us state of our heart and whether or not it it reflects the heart of God.
In our spirituality, we mask our idolatry to our emotions by using language like feeling led and being true to our heart. Or we base the reality of our spirituality based solely on how we feel rather than any spiritual standard. The worship services become about our ability to feel God rather than an understanding of the truth and reality of God’s omnipresent nature. While we hide behind pseudo-spiritual language, in truth, it is a failure on our part to make Jesus Christ the Lord of our emotional life. We must be willing to submit even our emotions to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, judging our heart against the truthfulness of the word of God and allowing our heart to beat in synchronization with the heart of God.
The Standard of Truth
The problem with being told to “follow your heart” (or be guided by your emotion) comes that the scriptures have terrible things to say about our heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV) Even we cannot fully discern what our heart and our feelings tell us. When we follow “our truth” we alter an objective reality into a subjective interpretation. Rather than claiming our understanding might be wrong, we attempt to shape reality based on our feelings. In truth, reality is formed, shaped, and created by God from the beginning of time. Our minds cannot allow the shifting guide of our emotions to guide us, but we must continually be willing to submit our thoughts and emotions to Jesus Christ as the Lord and King of our lives. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1-3, ESV) When we allow Jesus Christ to rightfully rule as the Lord and King of our lives, we willingly submit our interpretation and feelings to the standard of God’s truth. No amount of how we feel about a situation or how much we want something to be in the will of God will change the mind of God. We must allow the truth of God to shape our understanding and even our feeling of reality.
Thus, to willfully submit our emotions to the Kingship and Lordship of Jesus Christ, we must intimately know the mind of God. The scriptures are God’s divine self-revelation of Himself for the sake of His people. No mater how much we feel that God would love like we love or do what we do will make it any less true. Emotions must submit to truth and as Jesus defines Himself as “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6, ESV) then as Jesus rules as King, He defines even our response to our feelings. For too long, Christians have allowed the strength of emotions to define what we call sin, true, and right. We even judge our worship based on how we felt after the experience. For the Christian to thrive, we cannot be led by what merely feels right but wholly based on the word the truth of God, submitting to the word of God and wholly authoritative.
The Heart of God
So the questions remains, what should we dwell on in our heart? How do we cope with our emotions? Emotions serve as an indicator of the heart of a person but should never act as a guide. When we submit even our emotions and feelings before the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we must also invite the Holy Spirit to redeem our emotions. When a feeling does not reflect the glory of God, we immediately bring that feeling before the foot of the Lord and ask him to take control of our thought life. “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6, ESV) We take captive every thought that stands in opposition to the will and mind of God and allow the truthfulness of the God who reveals Himself to His people to guide our feelings.
When we find even our emotions submitted before the Lord, we will find a transformation occur from the inside out. Suddenly, the things that once bothered us will not seem like a huge bother anymore. Being rooted in the foundation of the Gospel, we will no longer feel strongly for the things of this world or the approval of man. Instead, we will begin to show a love for the things God loves and a hatred for the things God hates. Our passion to see the name of Jesus Christ lifted above all things will pour out of every aspect of our lives. We will mourn the injustices against God and cry out for the lost and broken. When our emotions are in sync with the thoughts and feelings of God, we will tap into the strength of an infinite God to spur us to new actions that we would have previously been scared to do and a confidence that comes from knowing the truth of God.
