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THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST SERIES
THE
ROLE OF EMOTIONS
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We have been looking at the character of
Jesus in this series. We have taught on
many topics. For example, we have about
16 tapes on love. From time to time we touch on different topics as the Holy
Spirit impresses upon our hearts. I
believe the topics on love and the character of Jesus are vitally
important. They are even more important
than topics on prosperity, healing or any thing else. This is not to say that we don’t need those
things, but when we all get back to heaven, we will discover that the only
thing that we bring back is not our wealth, not all that we possessed, not all
that we gained, but the only thing that we will bring back to heaven is truly
and only the character development in our lives. All the other things are only temporary for
our comfort that God has provided for us on this planet earth. We need to major
on those things that the Word of God says are major. And minor on those things that the Word of
God says are minor. We need to know what
our priorities in life are. And one of
the reasons why we have gone on this series is that as we taught on other
topics and we developed in them, we need to remind ourselves of the importance
of holding fast to Christian principles and Christian character while pursuing
life’s goal in our personal life.
Lets look at the book of Acts chapter 8 for a
moment. Acts 8: 9 But there was a certain
man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished
the people of
Do
you know that there are a lot of believers who can believe, are baptized in
water and even baptized in the Spirit and even been reading the bible and even
been doing things in Christian fellowship, even been active in different areas,
but there may be problems in their lives.
That is why we are talking about Christian character. Such a person was Simon the magician and
there were certain things that he desired wrongly. That is what we want to point out why our
Christian character needs to be developed.
What does true Christianity consist of? I think there are more people who are stumbled by Christians then people being witnessed to by
Christians. If all the Christians who
are supposed to be Christians live like Christians, evangelism would be a
normal affair. There are more Christians
stumbling people than Christians who are witnesses to Jesus. And even new Christians who join a church
sometimes are stumbled because there are varying standards even among
Christians. We need to establish the
standard in the bible, see how far we want to go with God.
In the book of Acts 8 there was the
conversion of Simon. But apparently
there was something not right in his life.
When he saw the power of God that was demonstrated through Peter and
John when they laid hands and the people received the baptism in the Holy
Spirit, Simon in verse 18-19 offered them money, saying, “Give me this power
also, that anyone that I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit”. He offered money for the power. That was the way he used to operate. What were the purpose and the motivation, why
does he want such power? No.1, he still
wanted to have attention he had before he was born again. Remember it says here in verse 10 & 11
that he was a sorcerer, a magician who was used to the business of
entertainment. He was almost like a
Today we have Christians who were
baptized, born again, baptized in the Spirit and know the Word of God, yet they
would have problem in bringing forth the character of Jesus in their lives. That’s why we are teaching this series. What was the problem? In Acts 8:22, “Repent therefore of this
your wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be
forgiven you.” Then verse 23 is the revelation of what was going on in his
life, For I see that you are poisoned by
bitterness and bound by iniquity.
The bible in other passages like Hebrew
talks about the root of bitterness. If
you look carefully bitterness is an emotion that affects the mind. And then there was sin and iniquity in his
life. And all these things caused wrong
thoughts to enter his heart and mind.
Many modern people will deny it because our present world system is
based on the intellect and education.
But many people’s decision-making is based on emotion. Some of it is based on intellectual processes
but a lot of it is based on emotion.
When we are born again we need to
differentiate between our emotion, our intellect and the Spirit of God guiding
our lives. Many times we confuse the
leading and missed the whole leading of the Spirit, even to the
extend of putting the name of God in it.
Saying that the Lord spoke to us. The Lord moved us. But it was our emotions and our own intellect
guiding us. And what’s the problem here. We need to point to a key role here. I will show you in the book of Acts that
while the Spirit of God was moving, while the Word of God was being preached,
the revival was going on, and the church was growing, emotions were still
ruling people’s lives.
Emotion can affect a person’s intellectual
process wrongly. Some of us may say that some people are just intellectually
guided. And between intellect and
emotion, let me tell you emotion wins.
Emotion can cause your analytical processes to go in a certain
direction. Between fear and intellect,
fear wins. When you believe in something
that is wrong, your mind operates and tells you the reason why it’s wrong. When you believe in something that is right, faith reasons and
tells you why it is right. Thus we see that both fear and faith have
their own reasoning.
When the people did not want to enter the
It’s important for us to take note of the fact
there in the world between emotion and intellect. I have known the most intellectual
people. When they fall in love with
someone who is wrong, their reasoning is more often than not also wrong. The most intellectual people when they get
emotionally involved in a property deal or in a financial deal, their
intellectual powers go berserk. They
reason their way into a wrong thing. The
ability to reason is no guarantee that we will make the right decision in
life. There is something bigger than our
reasoning processes.
There are certain things that are
directing our life and our decision making today.
No.1 There is a biological process that
gives us energy to live day by day even as we obey natural laws and we feed our
body.
No.2 There are
emotional feelings that we have, which stem from our likes and our dislikes
from our past, in our present and looking towards the future. We all have emotions and we feel those
emotions.
No.3 We have the
intellectual capacity to process information.
We agree, we disagree, we see it, we don’t see it, we rationalize, and
we don’t rationalize. Something we see
we agree. Something we don’t see we
disagree. Whether we have sufficient
information will hinder the analytical process.
Sufficient or insufficient information will hinder our intellectual
process.
Let me tell you, the most important
guideline in our Christian life is something in the invisible realm beyond our
natural body, beyond our intellect, beyond our emotion. It is called our conscience, which is guided
by the principles of God. The one
direction in our life in all these decisions must be our conscience.
Let me just run through the book of Acts
to show you how much emotion was involved.
And how the devil uses emotions to mislead and misguide people. Apparently even in Acts 8, we saw that Simon
was basing whatever he had on an emotion that he was feeling. The emotional need for recognition and the
emotional need for greatness almost cost his life. Peter told him he was bound by iniquity and
poisoned by bitterness even though he was a born again Christian in the church
in
As we progress through the book of Acts we
will show how emotions affect decision-makings.
Although this is not in black and white, the undercurrents are there. Acts 4:1-2 “Now as they
spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, the Sadducees came
upon them, being disturbed that they taught the people and preach in Jesus the
resurrection from the dead.”
Why were they disturbed? Because of the preaching
about Jesus. Why were they so
against Jesus? From the gospel they felt
that Jesus might take over all their authority.
And if everybody believes Jesus there will be no more necessity for
their existence. In fact one of them in
the gospel stories says that if they don’t stop Him, the whole world will go
after Him. They have developed an
irrational mind based on this emotional fear and jealousy. Many times emotional
feelings cause the mind to be irrational. Don’t try to use your mind when you
are emotionally affected because your mind doesn’t work properly during this
time. Your mind began to reason
wrongly. I mean people who want to sin
reason themselves into sin. A thief will
rationalize why he should rob. Don’t try
to use your mind when you are emotionally affected. Get your emotion settled first before you tap
on the mind and allow God’s Spirit to deal with your mind.
So as we look into the renewal over the
last week we saw hupomone in the development
of the soul and makrothumia in the
development of the human spirit. How
must these two forces develop our lives?
Now we are getting into the details of it. As we deal with our lives, the first area to
deal with is not just the mind, even though we have been preaching on the
renewal of the mind. Let me express the
fact that we need to renew our emotion.
If your emotion is not dealt with, your renewal of your mind will still
be affected because your reasoning will keep reasoning the wrong way. We need to be stabilized in our emotion
before the renewal of our mind can take place.
People who are emotionally unstable become mentally unstable and that’s
a fact.
Its looks like it was just based on a
doctrinal issue that these Pharisees were persecuting the apostles. If it was just a doctrinal issue, they would
be willing to debate and reason it out.
They had been emotionally affected, so that they tried to stop these
people preaching. Look at it this way. If they were intellectually correct and if it
were just a doctrinal statement that was different, why didn’t they just stand
up while apostle Peter was preaching and began to show
forth from the scriptures that there was no resurrection from the dead? Why do they have to secretly pull these
people aside and tell them not to speak about Jesus anymore? It was not an intellectual battle; they were
emotionally motivated. These were the
greatest intellectual people of those days; they were doctors of the law, yet
they were ruled by their emotions.
Acts 5 in verse 1 we see a Christian named
Ananias. “But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira
his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his
wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it on the
apostle’s feet. Why did he lie? He sold a piece of land and could have given
part of the property and tell the truth that this is only part of the
property. I have kept the rest for
myself because I want it. Why do you
think he lied? He did give
something. What did he give? He gave a portion. Would there be anything wrong if he had told
the truth and said this is a portion of the proceeds that I received. God blessed me with this land and I sold it. This is part of the money. Nothing wrong. It would be well accepted. God didn’t compel everybody to give
100%.
But there was an emotional need for
attention. Why do you think that they
lied? They wanted the glamour from the
people. They had an emotional need for
attention and the devil used it to his advantage. The devil uses people’s emotional needs all
the time. When the devil wins your
emotion he wins your intellect. Even in
the study of the physical brain, the intellectual connective part of the brain
is more in the cerebral cortex. The base
of our brain has a stem, which rises into the intellectual part, which is over
the forehead area. But do you know the
base stem of the brain is the part that controls your emotion? Your intellectual physical position is
resting upon the emotion. You could say
that the intellectual part of the brain can suppress the emotional part. Try it, but after sometime it explodes. Emotional victory is not won through
intellectual suppression.
Why do some of the most intelligent
students who score ‘A’s all the time, crack under examination pressures and
become funny? We have ministered to
some. They scored ‘A’
all the time and yet suddenly they cracked.
Was there anything wrong with their intellect? Let me tell you what was wrong. Their intellectual part was trying to
suppress their emotional part and it doesn’t go for long. You may get away with it for a short
time. But in the end the emotion will
explode and the intellectual doesn’t function anymore.
We need not only
the renewal of the mind, but we also need the renewal of the emotion in God to
develop the character of Jesus in us. I am sure Ananias and Sapphira
used their minds. They used their minds
to plot. They used their mind to
cheat. They used their mind to reason
out. They used their mind to
rationalize. But their intellectual
reasoning was motivated by their emotional need for recognition. That’s all - they just needed to be
recognized. Satan used it. Now we begin to see why some Christians’
characters need to be dealt with. We
need as much renewal in our emotion as our intellect to live a Christian life.
Let me show you problems in the book of
Acts arising from an emotion not properly dealt with. In Acts 6:10, And
they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he (Stephen)
spoke. They could not match Stephen
intellectually. Stephen’s emotions have
been dealt with; he was filled with the Spirit and he was a good man. His intellect has been renewed and he could
reason the work of God calmly. Now the
Pharisees and the Sadducees of his time opposed him. They could not
intellectually rise to his level because the Holy Spirit has anointed him. The Holy Spirit can easily anoint your
intellect as well as anoint your emotion if you learn how to yield.
And then in Acts 7:54, “
When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and
they gnashed at him with their teeth.”
People who gnash their teeth don’t do it because of their
intellect. When
someone gnash his or her teeth that is not an intellectual argument. That is an emotional distress signal. When Stephen won the battle through the word
he spoke and by the intellectual wisdom given by the Holy Spirit, their
emotions were stirred up. That was when they were so angry. They wanted to kill Stephen. People who kill people don’t do it because of
intellectual reason. They do it because
they are emotionally affected . When people kill one another, murder one
another and plot all these things, they use their intellect. But their intellect was being governed by
emotional need.
In Acts 7 it was stirred up emotion that
caused the outrage. In verse 57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped
their ears, and ran at him with one accord.
People who are not emotionally affected do not raise their voice. They were emotionally affected in verse
57. If they were not emotionally
affected they would say that they will now deal with Stephen very calmly. That’s all – they would be very intellectual
and objective about it. They would just
surrender him to the proper authorities, find proper
legal grounds to prosecute him and get him appropriately sentenced. No, they had been emotionally affected and
they dragged Stephen out, took stones and threw at him and killed him.
Let me give you
a little observation here. Crowds are
affected more by emotion than by intellectual arguments. When you have a big crowd and you want to
affect the crowd, don’t affect the crowd by intellectual arguments alone. You affect the crowd by emotion. That shows you how at the base of all human
civilization are the emotional needs that only Jesus the Prince of Peace can
meet.
Acts 9:1 Then Saul
breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
Saul was a very intellectual man.
He had reasons and he had great reasoning powers and he did not accept
the disciples of Jesus. The great
intellect among the greatest at Paul’s time was Gamaliel
and he knew that in the end the truth would win. You don’t have to get emotional about
it. Why didn’t Gamaliel
go about killing people? He was one man
who did not allow his emotions to rule him. In fact Gamaliel
was one of the keys to release the apostles.
Acts 5: 38, “And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let
them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but
if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it – lest you even be found to fight
against God. That is a very reasonable man and a man unaffected by
emotions.
That should have been the stand of the
Pharisees and Saul if they were emotionally unaffected. But apparently their intellectual argument
was not enough. Saul was also
emotionally affected. He went around
killing people. It is the emotions that
come from the base stem of our brain that are ruining many peoples’ life.
The reason why we are teaching this is, if we are Christians, born again, these things should not
govern us. The Spirit of God who resides
even deeper than the base stem of our natural mind and brain should govern
us. We must learn to tap on that and not
on those emotional things or wrong rationalization.
(Interestingly, for a very long time I
have always wondered why in many cases of people who come to me for
deliverance, I see a demon attached to the base of his or her neck. Now I
understand that if the demon can control the base of your brain stem, he can
then control your emotions, and thereafter he can then control your decisions
and choices you make. If you have spiritual eyes that can scan the spiritual
realm, you would be able to see a demon or demons holding tightly onto the base
of the neck of emotionally troubled individuals. One of the areas that should be prayed over
when people come to us for deliverance is the back of the neck. In many
deliverance and ministering sessions on a one-to-one basis, this area is often
overlooked. The person should be asked to repent of any action or ground that
he has given to evil or to the devil emotionally. Wrong
emotional choices. Emotional outbursts. Emotional depression. Covetousness, avarice, lust, sloth,
vanity, pride, have their roots in unhealed emotional needs, and must be
renounced and repented. Then authority can be taken over the demon and his
controlling activity over the patient can be broken off.)
Acts 9:39, “Peter
arose and went with them and when he had come they brought him to the upper
room and all the widows stood by him weeping showing their tunic and garments
that Dorcas had made while she was with them.” Here is a scenario of a good woman who died
and those lives that she touched have been emotionally affected. They were weeping and crying because now they
missed her. Emotions were involved and
in verse 40 Peter put all of them out. Because
when you get emotional you cannot listen to God. Peter had to listen to God whether God wanted
Dorcas to be resurrected or not. And if you don’t put aside emotion you cannot
discern God’s will. Forget about trying
to discern God’s will. Forget about your
intellectual argument and your rationalizing even if you quote the bible. You get emotionally about it and you quote
the bible, it is useless. You are
twisting and turning the bible for your own end. Get your spirit and your heart right with God
first. That is why among the hardest
things for you to discern in your own life, are the things you get emotionally
affected with. Better get an outside
person who is not emotionally affected to give the view. And don’t try to get other people who are
emotionally affected to side with you.
Don’t play with emotion. In the
end when the dust has settled only the
Acts 10:46 “For they heard them speak
with tongues and magnify God. Peter
answered can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have
received the Holy Spirit just as we have.”
Now if it had been a group of Jews he wouldn’t have said that. He would say straight away, baptize them with
water. They were Gentiles and Peter had
an emotional affectation toward the Gentiles.
In fact he argued with God, when God was trying to show him that He had
accepted the Gentiles as part of His plan of salvation. Acts 10:14 it talks about the 3 visions he
had. In the end in verse 21, three
Gentiles came to see him. The first
thing that Peter said when he preached the Word in verse 28 was motivated by
his emotional upbringing to regard the Gentiles as unclean people. Acts 10:28, Peter said, “You know how
unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another
nation.” That was an unnecessary
statement, a statement based on tradition and based on the fact that he was
still a bit fearful.
I need to point to Gal.2 to show the
extent that fear can play in his life of being a Jew mixing with Gentiles. Peter was so fearful of the Judaizers (that is, Christians who believe that they must
keep the Jewish laws) that when he saw them coming, he purposely kept away from
eating with the Gentiles. Paul had to rebuke him for this hypocrisy. Gal 2:
11-12 Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face,
because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would
eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself,
fearing those who were of the circumcision. Peter in a sense can’t help it
because he was brought up as a Jew. The
things that we find hardest to overcome are emotions that are ingrained in our
lives over 20 years or 30 years. It’s
very difficult to deal with deeply ingrained prejudices. That’s why Christian character is slow in
being perfected in Christian life. There
are things we are so steeped in, in a wrong way.
Peter was emotionally affected. On one hand he eats with the people, when the
Jews came he suddenly doesn’t want to eat with the people. He was not basing his action on biblical
reasoning. His action was based on
emotional response. And this is a great
apostle we are talking about. Even
apostles have emotions. We need to
understand how the character of Jesus can be developed in our lives. But lets watch the
people in the bible and learn from them.
If Paul didn’t stand up to Peter’s fear-motivated hypocrisy, his action
of not eating with the Gentiles may have become an example, a method and even a
denominational doctrine. All because of one man’s emotion. How we need to renew our emotions as much as
we need to renew our minds.
Acts 13, as Paul
begins his first missionary journey, they had the first measure of success when
they preached in the synagogues. Acts
13:15, Paul on a Sabbath day after the reading of the law and the prophet and
he was given a chance by the rulers of the synagogue to preach. Paul rose up and started preaching. When Paul started preaching in verse 42, So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the
Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them on the next Sabbath.
Look at what happen in verse 43. Now when the congregation had broken up,
many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who,
speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the
grace of God. Nothing happen the
first day. Verse 44, On the next Sabbath
almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God. The Jews had been existing
in the city for many years. They have
never got such crowds before. Suddenly
overnight these unknown fellows called Paul and Barnabas were getting
tremendous result.
What were the human emotions? In verse 45, But when the Jews saw the
multitudes, they were filled with envy. This was their secret reason. They were filled with envy. The real reason was that they were jealous of
Paul. Sometimes you can discern that
there are emotions running wild among the members in a particular church or
fellowship, especially if someone among them is greatly used by God. The emotions are so wild that the Spirit of
God cannot anoint the church or fellowship.
The devil is able to use such wild emotions to further his dirty
tricks. Sometimes if you don’t realize
it, the devil uses our emotion to trap us and bring disunity and strife to the
church. He cannot get us at our minds
because we can reason with God’s Word.
But our emotion is a trap door and through it he finds a secret door to
our life. And through our emotion he
begins to rule and reign in our life and we become unwittingly the instrument
of Satan to prevent somebody else from doing God’s will, God’s work. How dangerous emotions are if we don’t allow
Christian character to rule and reign there.
Here is the main reason, the bible says so
and we can’t question the bible. the Bible says the main reason is that they were envious and
jealous. They never tell people, “I am
jealous that’s why I don’t like Paul.”
But it says contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things
spoken by Paul. They started using
the intellectual processes to argue, to go against, to reason, to blaspheme, to
use scriptures, to use Old Testament against Paul. Anybody with a normal IQ is
capable of doing these things. But
underneath are envy and jealousy, the unspoken reason. How dangerous emotions are. The devil uses it to hinder. We are all reading the book of Acts. We all know who the hero is and who the bad
guys are. We all know but in life today
there are heroes and there are bad guys.
We know in life there are good people and there are bad people. There are emotional people, intellectual
people, and all kinds of people. Your
life story hasn’t finished yet. We need
to know how not to be affected by the wrong thing in order for God to perfect His
will. Because in 20 years’ time we may
discover what the good way was and what the bad way was. It may be too late. Our stories may be recorded like this and we
are shown as a bad guy, all because of emotion.
Such a simple little thing as emotion needs to be dealt with so as to
allow God’s character to grow in our lives.
Lets look at the book of Acts. The same Jews became envious of Paul’s
success. In Acts 14:19, they followed
Paul everywhere he went and they persuaded the multitudes to stone Paul. They
traveled all the way, and that cost money, that cost planning, that cost
intellectual rationalizing to do that.
All because of their jealous emotion they go so far. When people get emotionally affected they use
their I.Q. for a wrong thing. They
reason, dot upon dot, letter upon letter.
A lot of people fighting in the courts today are not fighting what is
right and wrong in principle. A lot of
them are fighting because of emotional stress and emotional disagreement. They are using intellectual processes. They are using the legal system; they are
using the brainiest lawyers. They are
using all these things because their emotions have been affected. The whole wastage of
millions of dollars over an emotional need. We Christians should not be that way. We need to know that we should not be that
way. And show that we should be prepared
to let the Christ like character come in our life. We don’t need just the renewal of the
mind. We need the renewal of our
emotion.
In the book of Acts,
in the second missionary, in Acts 15, but just before it began in Acts 15:39,
then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another and so
Barnabas took Mark and sailed to
We need to
mature enough to be able to respond to things beyond our emotional bonding
around us. Look at things that are alike
in the scriptures. To me that is an
emotional based argument. Paul must have
got affected emotionally also because later on Paul wrote that Mark was a
benefit to him and somehow they got over it.
That just tells me that in the midst of revival the human instruments
have emotion and sometimes they argue, sometimes they fight, sometimes they
don’t show their Christian character and this is the book of Acts we are talking
about. The greatest revival was going on
and Paul and Barnabas were having one of their arguments over Mark. Was God still there? God is still there, but God all the time has
been working in our lives trying to perfect our lives to respond in a right
way. Let me say something here. It’s not possible to have an argument with
somebody who doesn’t want to argue. How
do you argue with a person if the people don’t want to talk? It takes two to fight.
Acts 16, we read about the
If you experience life long enough, you
will know that deceptive people will never give you the real reason for their
actions. The thing about people who are
immature is the thing that such people don’t know their underlying emotional
motivations. Listen very carefully; you
can try to convince human beings.
Sometimes you can even succeed, but you can never outwit God, He sees
right into the heart. The reason why you
do something, there may be a hidden reason that is emotionally motivated but
outwardly there is a legal reason you can give, an outward reason and a nice
reason. Lets
not fool ourselves. When will we be
honest inside and outside? When will we
call a spade a spade? When will we be
truthful to ourselves and to those around us?
And the story of Christianity is a story of truth and honesty. Not lies and deception.
Acts 19, there was a
revival going on. But underneath the
revival there were also different things involved. The emotions of people were being
affected. Acts 19:24, one of the biggest
revival taking place, but the devil was going to stir up opposition through
emotions. “For a certain man named
Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no small
profit to the craftsmen. He called them
together with the workers of similar occupation and said, “Men, you know that
we have our prosperity by this trade.
Moreover you see and hear that not only at
But the real reason is because their
profit is being affected. Who is to fool
whom? The real reason is that their
sales volume is being affected. If Paul
was making money for them or helping them make money and Diana was still being
reduced, they would not have said a thing.
Money was their god; Diana was not their god. Diana was an excuse to make money. Money was their god. And when they started losing money, it is when, look at verse 28, “Now when they heard this, they
were full of wrath.” Now, their
emotions were stirred up.
An example of one who can be intellectual
without emotion in found in verse 35-38 And
when the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of
The difference between him and the others
was that these other fellows in verse 28 were full of anger. They were emotionally affected and they cried
out and they said, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” So the whole city was
filled with confusion and rushed into the theater with one accord, having
seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul’s travel companions. And then they all gathered together. No one knows the reason for what was
happening. It was just confusion.
In verse 31, Then
some of the officials of
Verse 34, they cried with one voice for
about 2 hours. Imagine for 2 solid hours
saying this silly statement great is Diana of the Ephesians. These must be mad people, chanting away. They were not doing that due to an
intellectual argument, they were doing that based on emotional display.
Now I have rested my case. There are others too. I can trace through the book of Acts and show
you how emotions have affected the work of God.
Sometimes among God’s people and sometimes among the opposition of God’s
people. At the root of things there is
not only the need for the renewal of the mind but also the renewal of the
emotion. How then shall we rule our
life? To remove our emotions is to be
less than a human being. We can’t exist
without emotion.
It is important to know where our major
life force must come from. Where does
our major life force, which is invisible come
from? The key is the conscience. When you get emotionally affected by your
business, by a deal, and your intellectual mind is “tick-tocking”
away, calculate 3 to 5 years time, you would have that answer. Have you listened to your conscience and
asked whether this or that is not right?
Yet how many businessmen would rather ignore their conscience and
rationalize away their actions? They are emotionally affected by greed, compromise,
but they don’t tell you as such. But
they never listen to their conscience in their heart that says wrong,
wrong. They never listen. Let me encourage you the basic of Christian
character revolves around the development of our conscience. You can still have
your emotions but you learn to put them under control. The basic is your conscience feeling or
sensing what is right and putting aside your emotional
feeling and rational argument.
Let me just ask you. As you stand naked in the light of God’s
presence, do you really think that this is right? If we were to guard our lives that way, we
will be a better people. Not only that,
God will bless you.
Now that was the way Paul run his
life. He may have emotion, but at the
root of it, this was his life: he listened to his conscience. Acts 23:1, “Paul looking earnestly at he
council, said, ‘Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before
God until this day.” His conscience
was his guide.
Let’s connect this to the teaching on hupomone and makrothumia and show
how these two forces affect our lives.
It has to come to this point in Heb. Chapter 9 &10. Heb.9: 14 before you can do any works for
God. In verse 14, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
spot to God cleanse your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God.” There is no
way you can serve God in this life without your conscience. If you want to serve your own life go your
own way with your emotion. If you want
to live your own and be the god of your own life, live your own way
intellectually. But if you want to serve
God, there are many times where our emotions have to bow to our
conscience. There are many times where
our intellect has to bow to our conscience.
Where intellectually you can’t really see it because
we look through a glass darkly.
Emotionally you can’t really feel that but you know deep in your
conscience what is right and what is wrong.
And you keep to the level in your decision making. Sometimes against your own emotion you make
the decision, because you know in your conscience what is right and what is
wrong. That’s the way to guard your
Christian life.
Heb.10: 22 “Let us draw near with a true
heart in, here’s the key
word, full assurance of faith.
Remember we said that hupomone and makrothumia work together to give us that
fullness necessary for developing the Christian character in us. And part of the achieving of that fullness is
through our conscience. If you do it
through your emotion in the end it becomes empty. You do it through your intellect in the end
it becomes empty. When your conscience
began to rise, there will be a sense of godliness, a sense of deity, a sense of
God’s nature in your life, sense of the character of Christ operating through
your life. And you will be filled with
God’s presence. Heb.10: 22 Let us
draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Our conscience needs to be trained by the
Word of God and by the Spirit of God.
The Christian life is a story of training of the conscience and as the
conscience is trained, it becomes godliness.
II Peter 1:3-4, “As His divine power has given to us all
things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who
called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great
and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine
nature.” The purpose of God is that
we be conformed to Jesus Christ. You
partake of the divine nature and the same process as we saw in Rom.5.
Now coming to II Peter 1:5 onwards, add
to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to
self-control perseverance (that is hupomone),
to perseverance (hupomone) godliness.
Godliness is where hupomone has its perfect
work. Your emotions are held steady by
godliness. Remember hupomone
is a process in your soul. And here the
word godliness is not from the word theosebeia
but is from the word eusebeia which means
godliness. It is from the word eu, “well,” and sebomai,
“to be devout,” denotes that piety which, characterized by a Godward attitude, does that which is well-pleasing to Him.
That is a devoutness and devotion that comes from a true godly character. This
godliness is from the human response or from the human angle. The divine angle is the one with the word theosebeia. Theosebeia denotes the fear or reverence of God, and
is from theos, “god”
and sebomai, “to be devout”.
Here is the word ‘Eusebeia’. And that’s where hupomone
develops your character and your conscience develops until your conscience
follows after God. One step at a time
we begin to learn the process. It is not
easy on your emotions or all your intellect when you begin to follow what is
right. The world may think that you are
foolish, the world may think that you are doing the wrong way, but our advice
to you in all your decisions of life, if you want to develop Christian
character, let go of your emotions, let go of your reasoning and follow your
conscience. You will never be
wrong. Your conscience has to be trained
by the Word of God and through the Spirit of God through prayer.
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