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THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST SERIES
DIVIDING SPIRIT AND SOUL
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Lets turn our Bible to the book of Romans
chapter 5. We have been teaching on
Christian character and how to develop Christian character.
Rom.5:
1-5, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into
this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations,
knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character;
and character, hope. Now hope does not
disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
We have
mentioned that the word perseverance found in verse 4 is the word hupomone. And
we have touched on the fact that there are two Greek words for the word patience. One is the word hupomone
and the other is the word makrothumia. Makrothumia
comes from a combination of two words, makro
and thumia.
We have also mentioned that makrothumia
relates to the work of the Spirit of God in our life, the development of the
human spirit. Hupomone
has reference to the development of the soul.
Last
week we talked about dokime, which is the
Greek word for the word character.
Think of dokime as a document. We are the document of God. We are the epistles of God. The Word of God becomes flesh and people read
our lives. The more your character
becomes a dokime in God, the more you become
an epistle of Jesus. Not all of us are
100% epistle in our lives. All of us can
live a kind of Christianity, a Sunday Christianity, or once a week or twice a
week kind of Christianity, where people see our lives only one or two days. But the test of true Christianity is when
someone lives with you 24 hours. Then
they will see whether you are a real Christian or just a plastic Christian. We all need to grow until our lives are the
same inside and outside. What we are in
public and what we are in private is consistent in our walk with God, in our
principles we hold to. The more
consistent we become in our lives, the more the glory of Jesus,
that is dokime, building the
character of Jesus in our lives.
We
have mentioned also last week that there is a word for trial and testing. Sometimes the word trial comes from
the word dokime, which is not just a simple
temptation. The word temptation,
which sometimes is translated as trial comes from the word piraso.
That is just talking about the situation, whereas the word testing
is sometimes translated as trial that has to do with the work of hupomone and makrothumia
coming out and becoming permanent in your life.
Not just once in a while but permanent.
And
we have quoted II Cor. 8, describing how the
Macedonians endured their great trial of affliction The word trial is not the word for
temptation. There is some confusion in
the translation. Sometimes the word piraso has been translated as trials,
sometimes as temptation. But that
word trial in II Cor.8 in reference to the Macedonian churches is from
the root word dokime. It has to do more with something coming in
their life. How they remained strong and
firm, in season and out of season they continue to bring forth the character of
Jesus.
The
true test of your character is not when there is no pressure, its when the pressure is on, that’s when your character is
tested. It is that kind of trial they
were having. Where everything outside
looks like its bad but because of their consistency they were still able to
give to God. Sometimes people give and
they are steady givers. Only when they
have good times, but the test of whether you are a real giver is not whether
you have a good time. It’s when you are
in affliction and yet because of what you have vowed, what you have promised to
God, you keep giving unto the Lord.
The
test of your giving is living a life style of giving. For example you made a covenant with God
that you be a giver. Sometimes you have
abundance, sometimes you have needs in your life, but because of your
integrity, what you said you still give.
May be you are supporting a missionary, may be you are supporting people
in the ministry. Whether you have
abundance or not, one of your priorities is that what you promised you will
perform. You will give what you have
promised, whether you are in need or not.
We do that to our children. We do
that to our loved ones. Why can’t we do
that for the
I know parents who will sacrifice whether they
are in need or not in need. Whether they
have enough food or finances for food or not, they will always sacrifice in
order that their children would have enough.
If there’s only enough food for their children and not for them, many
parents would be willing to sacrifice and fast in order for them to eat. If we could do that for the family, if we
could do that for our loved ones, we should be able to love Jesus more. And we do that because we love Jesus. That is character in our lives. Where in season and out of
season you remain the same. You
remain steadfast and that is the dokime kind
of trial. It is not the trial that
determines your success. It is what you
have on your inside that determines the success in a trial.
An
interesting development and we were teaching on how God will deal with our
emotions and our life. And I made a
statement where I gathered from my own studies and from the studies of the Word
of God that I do sometimes in my private scientific research and I have reached
some conclusion. Like for example some
of the things I get curious about is if people live in outer space and a child
is born in outer space or lets say they colonize one
of the moons of Jupiter which has a very great gravitational pull. What kind of development would they
have? How tall or how short will they
be? My personal evaluation is that if
someone is born in a place without much gravity that they will be very small in
size. If someone is born in a planet
with heavy gravity they will be big in size because of resistance. These are some of the things.
Among
other things that I have done research in is that in the Word of God emotions
as we have shared two weeks ago plays a role in decision making, and in fact I
have studied the structure of the brain and in the brain stem are the deepest
recesses of the brain that contain the emotional faculties. The intellectual part is more in the cortex
area where the lower animals do not have and I have mentioned that our emotions
are the root of our realizing. For
example if you have fear about certain things in your life, because of your
fear your mind will tell you 10 reasons why you need to be fearful, but when
you remove your fear and replace it with faith, your mind will work with your
faith and tell you 10 ways in which you can achieve what you need to
achieve.
Supposing that there are two students one with fear and one with
faith who are both struggling and have the same circumstances, same finances
and same amount of talent. One is
full of fear and gives 10 reasons why he cannot continue his studies. Another is full of faith and gives 10 reasons
why and ways in which he can continue his studies. The difference is not because of the ability,
not because of the talent, not because of the circumstances. The difference is their emotions. One has allowed the emotion of fear to
dominate their lives. The other has allowed the positive work of faith to
dominate their lives. Their mind is just
a servant. Their intelligence, their
I.Q., their ability to reason is just a servant to their emotion and their
emotion to their spirit. We not only
need to renew our minds, but also our emotions, in order to be successful.
Believe
me, people struggle trying to remember things, trying to have a good mind. The secret is in enjoying what you are trying
to do. You never struggle to remember
something you like. And the key to
getting your children to remember facts that they learn is to help them to
enjoy study. If they enjoy study and
enjoy Mathematics, they will never struggle to study. The key is more the emotional factor that
will stimulate their minds.
Now,
recently last week there was an article from Times Magazine. Quoting from July 1995 Time Magazine issue,
it says something about a connection between the emotion and the
intelligence.
There
is a man named Elliot, Elliot was an intelligent businessman who has a record
of success. To all outward appearance
Elliot is a perfectly normal middle age businessman. Despite an operation a decade ago for removal
of a brain tumor, the size of a small orange, he remains intelligent and
rational. The operation did not touch
any part of his brain that affects his intelligence or his rational
thought. Yet after his operation, his
behavior makes it clear that there is something very wrong. After years of rock solid competent Elliot
now has trouble keeping appointments, making decisions, etc. He has squandered much of his life saving on
a series of bad investments. And strangest
of all the very fact that his self-destructive behavior doesn’t seem to bother
him. And he keeps on making the same
mistakes.
What
happened to this Elliot? His
intelligence was unaffected by the operation, but something else was taking
place which I like to quote from.
What
happened to this Elliot is this: Elliot has an operation of his brain tumor and
as the tumor was removed part of the brain that controls the emotion was
affected. Elliot was not able to feel
emotion as he used to.
Let
me read some of the things about Elliot and some of the research they have done
on the connection between emotions and intelligence. It seems that No.1 when you have an emotional
shock it can actually affect your memory physically not just mentally. They have found that it actually physically
destroyed your neurons. Emotions are
powerful. It can actually physically
destroy your emotion. People who allow
themselves to sink into hatred, rage and all the wrong emotions can actually
destroyed their capacity to think and to function. Physical trauma can distort memory presumably
by destroying all or part of one of these memory-processing structures.
But
other sort of shocks strong emotions for example can do the same. Virtually any American over the age of 10
when John F. Kennedy was shot in 1963 or when the challenge Space Shuttle
exploded in 1986 remember precisely where he or she was when the news
arrived. Why, because of the emotions. Severe stress can change the way your brain
functions biologically. I have said that
emotions can affect your intellectual functioning. Now they go further than that. The emotions can actually affect the
biological function of your brain.
Lets quote a little bit more.
It
stands to reason that humans will have a specialized region of the brain for
processing emotional perceptions. Let’s
look at this Elliot character. Why was
he a normal businessman who keeps appointments, competent, rock solid and able
to do investments correctly, suddenly he squanders all his lifesavings, misses
his appointments and then, worse than that he doesn’t even fear any remorse and
he keeps making the same mistakes. After
a brain surgery Elliot cannot behave rationally even though his intelligence
was not affected by his tumor. That part
of the brain destroyed by invading tissue was in the region of the pre-frontal
cortex essential to decision making. But
what ever Elliot lost psychologically, psychological testing revealed that he
lost the ability to experience emotion.
Elliot lost the ability to experience emotions.
Emotion
is the key element of learning and decision-making. It is when you enjoy reading the Bible and
feel the emotion of it that you will remember what you read. We will look at God’s Word afterwards. Let me quote you from natural examples
first. Here are statements that are
important. If an investment goes sour,
you feel bad about it and act more carefully next time. Something that Elliot could no longer do
after his injury. See that’s what stops
you from making the wrong decision. When
you missed an appointment and people are disappointed you also feel bad. So you make sure you don’t miss your
appointment. When you make a bad
investment and you feel the emotion, you lost some money. And because of your emotion, you try to be
more careful and don’t do the same mistakes again. But Elliot was not able to feel all these
things. He could feel no emotion when he
does something that is a mistake. And
therefore he keeps doing the same thing and repeats the same mistake. He lost all his money and he doesn’t feel
anything. If a lot of people lose their
life’s saving they will feel bad.
Something in them feels very rotten, stupid or bad or just something
terrible. But he couldn’t feel all these
things and therefore he became a different person. His intelligence, his ability to analyze was
not affected. So if an investment goes
sour you feel bad about it, and act more carefully next time.
We can’t decide whom we are going to marry if
you don’t feel emotion. You can’t decide
what saving strategy to adopt, I mean if you have several. And you don’t feel good about any. Your can’t decide where to live if you don’t
feel where its good to live. Your feeling still comes in. Why is it that you buy a house in a certain
area? Not only your mind, your mind can
argue and rationalize, but something on your inside feels nice. You like the place. None of you will buy a place you don’t like,
unless of course you don’t have a choice.
But supposing that you have multiple choices, your emotion still affects
your buying decision. Where you are
going to live, why do you live, where you live? Some people live where they lived because
they have lived there all their life.
Why is it so hard for people to move from one town to another? That is an emotional tie. If you argue rationally and intellectually
almost every place has is pros and cons. In the end your emotion has to make the
decision where to live. We don’t make
the decision of where to live, what saving strategy to adopt, whom to marry
based on reason alone. We do it based
also on emotion. That’s just what
science is saying.
As
we examine the Word of God we have realized that emotions play a role in our
decision-making and in fact a greater role.
Emotions come first and then the intellect. Remember we have said that pattern
before. In order to make a decision or
hear God’s voice we need to smooth or calm our emotions first, and not let our
emotions be unruly or let our minds go astray in all directions. Only when the
Spirit of God calms your emotions can the Spirit of God and the Word of God
renew your mind and after that can you really hear God. Which is why it is very
difficult to hear the voice of God in an area where you get emotional about,
because when you get emotional about that area your reasoning will also support
your emotion. Our reasons support
the emotion.
As
we look at the Word of God, God says something about how to handle all these
emotions and intellectual rational function in our life by the Spirit of God.
Heb.4 How do we handle all these things and get
renewal from the Word of God? Heb.4: 12 “For
the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrows and
is a discerner of the thought and intent of the heart.”
There is something that it
says of the Word of God. The Word of God
separates all the integrated parts of your soul and your spirit, of your bone
and of your marrow. It separates the
different parts of your physical biological process and the intents of the
thought processes of your heart. All these
things are vital. As
you look at this question here in Heb.4: 12. Look at the statement of fact. It states here as a fact, that the Word of
God separates soul and spirit. It
separates between your thoughts and intents to help you discern or help you to
know each one of them. The question here
is this: if we have the fact presented that way, our next question is
this. Why do we need them to be
separated? Why do we need to separate
between the spirit, the soul and all our different thoughts that arise from
different parts of our being? Why do we
need to separate them? In order to exist
and allow the right kind of spiritual guidance from our human spirit that God
has given new birth to and our character development we need to separate
them.
In
order to understand why we need to separate them, let us show you how the devil
works. The devil works the
opposite. He confuses and he tries to
merge your spirit, your soul and your body together so that what comes from
your body you can’t discern. What comes
from your soul you can’t discern. He will give a soulish
reason to pursue the spiritual thing. He
confuses between the spirit and soul.
Remember the devil does the opposite and he causes your reasoning to be
befuddled so that you cannot discern which is spirit,
which is soul.
Now
the reason God separates them is not that God reduces us to a creature of
spirit without soul and without body. As
long as you are on this earth, you have a body and you live in a body. You have a soul and we just need to put it in
its proper place. There is nothing wrong
with your soul or your body. As long as
you live with the Word, we just need to put it in its proper place. Renewal is not removing. Renewal is putting something in its proper
place. You can’t remove your body. The key in Christian development and
character is in putting your body in its proper place. For example, you may be having a craving in
your physical area. It could be sex, it
could be an area of food, but somehow you gain control over those things. And you put it in its proper place. You say look in this occasion it is not
viable and it is not correct and you may tell your physical body. Your physical body may be mad about alcohol,
mad about certain food. Maybe all you
struggle with is you are mad about bread.
In case you didn’t know it, Kenneth Copeland was mad about bread and
buns. He couldn’t go to a bakery before
he was successful in the ministry without stopping by and eating a few
loaves. In fact Kenneth Copeland now you
see him nice and fit, before that he look like a big
round fellow. You wouldn’t believe it,
but that was how he started. Bread was
his weakness, he couldn’t resist when there’s freshly baked bread. You know how good bread smells when it’s
fresh. He doesn’t just take a small
slice but he eats the whole loaf. He
struggles but he learns to control that appetite of his body. He learns to put that in its place.
Noel Hayes does
it differently. Noel Hayes shares how
sometimes he eats some food that he likes and in case some of you are wondering
why we are talking so much about eating.
Do you know that the first fall is through eating? Noel Hayes mentioned that he liked coconut
pie and how God had to deal with him.
One day as he was eating coconut pie, he took one piece, oh that’s nice
and he couldn’t resist. Instead of just
buying one he bought one whole basket.
He ate it and the rest of the week he got sick and his body said: give
me another one and he told his body shut up, one coconut pie is good enough for
you. We have to know where all these
desires arise. What happens if Noel
Hayes does not know that, that is his body and he hears this voice from his inside. His desire
rising give me another one. He thinks
that the Lord is speaking through his spirit that he needs to eat more coconut
pie and he says thank you Holy Spirit for your guidance. What happens if he doesn’t discern where all
these desires and thoughts were rising from? His character would be twisted.
So,
Satan works by confusing spirit, soul and body, merging them into one so that
we cannot differentiate which is which.
But God develops our character by teaching us how to divide where each
one of the things come from, which of your desires come from which section of
your being so that you could put it in its proper place. Renewal of our emotion and character is not
very hard. I know some of you struggle
and you say O God it takes so long to change.
After 15 years I only changed so much.
I would need another 120 years and I don’t have 120 years because now I
am 70 years old. Renewal is not hard. Don’t let the devil deceive you that is very
hard to have a good Christian character.
The secret is to put everything in its proper place. You have been trying to overcome instead of
trying to classify. You will not yield
to it. If you know a desire or a thought
is arising from a wounded part of your soul or from an inordinate craving from
your flesh, it’s easier to resist and put it down. You could renew your mind and your mind will
have all the reasons to say no to that unlawful desire. It’s not will power but its spirit power.
Let
me show some Bible examples of Satan confusing people with their thought. He tries to mix it up together. Acts 8; this person called Simon the
magician. What was his problem? Why was he this kind of character? Even after he was born again and baptized in
water, Acts 8:13 tells us that Simon believed and he was baptized. That tells you that Simon was now a
Christian. Although he was Christian, he
was still a worldly Christian. Let me
tell you that there are a lot of Christians who are worldly Christians. The way they think, the way they talk, the
way they function, they are still worldly.
Their characters have not changed.
Here
is Simon, why is his character not changed?
You can see that he still had the desire for attention, desire for
self-glorification, because once upon a time in verse 11, he used to do
sorceries and everyone would say this is a great man. He is used to that life style. Now after he was born again, those things
that he had fed on are still there. I
believe Simon had paid a lot of money for that.
He must have used money to buy his way to learn different types of
witchcraft from the masters and buy the necessary accessories to perform his
sorceries. He has been using that process,
using his money. Money was his god. He got used to that kind of thinking.
And
now he is born again, baptized in water and he saw Peter, John laying hands on
people and people receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He straightaway began to desire for this
power in verse 19. “Give me this
power that also anyone on whom I lay hand may receive the Holy Spirit.” What was wrong here? He had carnal desires for spiritual things
and has confused the spiritual method with the physical method using money to
get the spiritual gifts. All these are
wrong. There is confusion here. Using carnal principles
with a carnal desire for spiritual gifts. All these are mixture. And Peter says here in verse 21, “Your
heart is not right.” See his
motives, his intentions are not divided.
He hasn’t separated the spirit and soul.
Maybe Simon thought that now he is a new Christian, every desire in his
life would be of God. I mean he can use
money to do this. He may be thinking of
really using the gift to get people to be baptized in the Spirit, but at the
same time he also get some glory. He may have been mixed up in his
thinking. This kind of thinking is a
confusion of spirit and soul and body.
He is not dividing all his desires correctly.
How
do we divide all his desires correctly?
No.1: His desire for spiritual power can be harnessed for the
I Sam. It tells us
here I Sam. 8:4-5 “Then
the elders of
How
do I know that God may desire for them to have a king, because God said it in
the Bible. In the book of Exodus He even
prepares for time that there will be a kingdom.
There was a proper time. Lets say your son comes to you, your son has grown up and
says to you, daddy, get me a car like your car.
It was a desire. You say, no,
why do you want a car? Your son said, so
I can show all my friends. That’s the
wrong reason for the desire. But the
desire to drive a car can be harnessed.
He can be told look, now you are too young and you know the character of
the son. You know he can’t handle this
yet. You want to postpone it to another
3 years. Teach him to handle a little
bit more responsibility and you have reasons for that but he may not know. So he may be confusing the right desire
because when it comes time for them to grow up, they may need to do certain
things on their own. It may be good for
them to be adventurous, to go forth to launch their life. It is their life that they must build
up. You cannot keep them in the children
coop all the time until they are 30 and open the key and say now you can
go. By then they are too old. They have not seen the world. They have not experienced things for
themselves. They need to experience a
lot of things to be adults. You need to
prepare them but to give them the freedom to make their decision. They have the right desires but will struggle
with the wrong reason for the desire and the wrong ways to achieve the
desire.
Now
here the Israelites came and they actually wanted to be like all the nations in
the world. Samuel kept trying to tell
them to reason and say, look if you have a king, this will happen, in verse 19. They still refused. You know what I believe. It was a wrong timing. Why, because they insisted. God says they have rejected Me.
Let’s look at a
different situation. Let’s say it is
like an organization and the president is the head of the organization. There is a time coming for the president to
retire and another one to be elected to be president. What happens if people get impatient and
replaced the president sooner than expected. They could have waited until it is the proper
time. But they were in a hurry. Maybe it could be true. That fellow is getting old and cannot lead
properly and its time to replace him.
But there are some people who want the replacement done for the wrong
reason because they want to be the president themselves. If you get the wrong people to do it, they
are president not because they want to help the company but because they wanted
that role. When such persons become the
president you begin to feel the wrong domination coming down on you because
people who are in a hurry to replace others are not patient and do have hupomone. They do not wait on God. Instead of allowing God to work on the
circumstances, they do it themselves for the wrong reasons. This is where the character is a fault. They don’t divide all the different
desires.
Every
wrong thing that is done many times there is some right elements in it. Why do a lot of people get deceived into the
wrong thing? Because
there is some right in it. The
problem is the confusion of spirit, soul and body; they are all messed up. And people don’t discern carefully. Personally I believe we must only do the
right thing at the right time in the right method with God’s guidance. If God doesn’t say it, it means silent, it is
time to exercise hupomone and makrothumia.
We need to learn to be patient with God and with people. We don’t take things into our own hand.
Verse
22, the Lord says get them a king and in the end a king was chosen. Saul was chosen. But Saul made many mistakes. So they found that Saul also make
mistakes. Samuel’s sons made
mistakes. Now they have Saul the king
and Saul started making blunders. See, if
you are in a hurry to replace someone, you may choose wrongly, and the
replacement will make as many mistakes as the first one. Which is why I don’t
believe in getting in a hurry to make any decision. I believe that when you solve something it
must be solved permanently and a permanent solution needs to be prayed over,
brooded over, meditated over and it must come from God.
When
Saul started making mistakes God rejected him.
In chapter 16 of I Samuel, God chose David and anointed him. God started promoting David and we know the
rest of the story how David slew Goliath.
In Sam.18: 1-2 “Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul
of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own
soul. Saul took him that day, and would
not let him go home to his father’s house anymore.”
At
first Saul liked David, but then things started happening and in verse 5 David
went out wherever Saul sent him and behaved wisely. But one day when he came back in verse 6-7
that the women were dancing and rejoicing and they were singing Saul slays
his thousands and David his 10 thousands.
Verse 8 Saul was very angry and the saying displeased him. He said they have ascribed to David 10
thousands and to me they ascribed but thousand.
What more can he have but the kingdom. Verse 9 so Saul eyed
David from that day forth.
Lets look at the two situations. David served God with the right heart and
served Saul with the right heart. He
never wanted the kingdom. God may have
given to him but he will not have it by his own hand. And all the time when Saul chased him, two
times which were recorded, David let Saul go.
Not only that, he says his servant David, he humbles himself and what
was the problem with Saul? He began to
see reasons why David should be eliminated.
He began to think and brood over those things. What has happened? Saul still has his intelligence and his mind.
His emotions have now been affected.
Saul felt emotional displeasure over one incident but he allowed the
emotional displeasure arising from the one incident to be his life force. And from that day onwards, he was
jealous.
Then
in verse 12, he was afraid because he saw God was with David. There
developed a mixture of jealousy and a mixture of fear in Saul towards
David. In verse 15, when Saul saw how
he behaves very wisely, he was afraid of him - jealousy, envy and
fear. Let me tell you, one more thing is
coming now. He began to plot evil. He began to wish that David would die. In verse 17 onwards it tells you how he offer his daughter.
He was not really offering his daughter. He was offering his daughter as
the bait. He wanted David to be killed
by the Philistines. Look, jealousy,
envy, and fear, when you are afraid of something, there are two reactions. Attack your fear or run away from your
fear. You can attack wrongly. When you are afraid of people, there are 2
things. You either avoid them or if you
act wrongly, you try to get rid of them by the carnal way. Saul reacted by trying to get rid of
David. He is afraid David will take his
kingdom. Get rid of David and you will
have no more fear. Instead of dealing
with his fear, he deals with circumstances out of emotional fear and jealousy and
he used his reasoning to justify his actions.
Look
at that. He is quite intelligent. He plotted, he strategies but it springs from
an emotional base. He was confused,
mixing right desire with wrong desires, right thought with wrong thought. Spirit, soul and body has become one. He has no more purity of his heart. To be pure means to allow only the pure
things that God puts in our life to come out.
Put down every other thing. Put
it in its proper place. In the end,
those thoughts became thoughts of anger.
In
chapter 19 verse 17, Saul said to Michal, why have you deceive me like this
and let David escape. So he got
worse and worse. Do you know what happened
in the end? He actually destroyed his
own life. Look at it this way. What’s the benefit of having a bad
character? What’s the benefit of doing
the right thing in the wrong way? In doing that we destroy ourselves. What’s the benefit of trying to argue and win
an argument and lose your own peace?
It’s better not to argue. Because
if you win an argument, you are hot tempered and you are shouting, you actually
have lost yourself. You won the argument
but you lost your character. Which is
more precious, character or just one incident?
See, we need to learn to divide spirit, soul and body. Saul was not able to divide.
You
see verse 17, he accused Michal of deceiving him. Now, who was the one being deceived? He said, why did you
deceive me and let David escape. He
never saw for once that he was the one who was wrong. He accuses others of deceiving him when he
himself is being deceived by his own emotion.
As
we look on, when David escapes him in chapter 22 verse 7, Saul was becoming
more and more carnal.
He told his servant when David escaped.
Hear now you Benjamite will the son of
Jesse give every one of you, fields, vineyards, make you all captains of
thousands and captains of hundreds.
He is using his position now wrongly.
As king, he is using bribes to win over people to his side against
David. Be on my side and I will make you
captains. Be on my side and I will give
you vineyards. He is now trying to use
power and money to get his own way. The
problem was that his own way of doing things was
wrong. There are a lot of people out
there in the world who use their power and position to get their own way.
What
happen if your own way is wrong? Let me
tell you brutally and honestly and firmly I respect everyone regardless of his
position, title, or wealth. But I will
not respect the person who throws his weight around, uses his position to
intimidate others and flashes money to buy people up in order to have his own
way. In the Word of God, in the
principle of God, in the
Look
at verse 8. He accused them, all of you have
conspired against me. No one conspired against him. Many people should go to the mirror and say
mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the one who is really wrong? The mirror will answer the one who is looking
in the mirror now. Learn this
principle. Every emotion in our life
that is wrong arises from a fault in our life and not in other people’s
life. When we can be honest with one
self and look in the mirror and say the real person to deal with is you, not
your foes. Jesus said, love your
enemy. Your real enemies are not your
enemies. Your real enemies are the wrong
things in your life. Don’t trust any
reasoning when you feel the wrong emotion, because when you have an emotion,
your reason will let you down. Think of the emotional rejection that Saul had,
he thinks people are against him. I
think he needs help. He needs
counseling. Do you know that right now
you can believe that there are people who are against you and it may be false
but it is you who are having a problem?
It is your fear nerve that is sensing wrong things. In the end Saul
showed symptoms of anger. What had
happened is he has confused his soul with his spirit. The Bible tells us that its
alright if you feel all the various expressions of your soul. But keep them in their proper place. Bible says in Eph.4, “Don’t let the sun go down on your
anger.” It implies that you can
feel angry and irritated and all these human emotions but you put them in their
proper place. You learn how to ensure
that they don’t get out of the box that they are supposed to be in. Let God deal with the root causes of them all.
The
secret of dealing with these areas is to learn how to get the good emotion
working for you. You see, we say the Spirit
of God leads us; the human spirit guides us. We also say we are like a
train. Faith is the engine of the
train. Your emotions and your feelings
are the other carriages that the train pulls.
Let me be honest with you, my friends.
It is still important that you feel good when it is good. We are creatures of emotion. We can’t do things without emotion. Our emotions need to be renewed. The secret is to learn to get rid of wrong
emotions and replace them with good emotion.
When you feel down, you learn to pray yourself up. When you feel discouraged, you learn how to
encourage yourself. When you feel bad or
you have done some wrong things, you learn to confess your sins and pray
through and meditate on the Word until you feel good again. Do you know that inside each one of us there
is a feeling of goodness and there is a sense of well-being? There is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness and faithfulness. The key thing about Christian life and
Christian character is you learn how to generate the good emotion yourself with
the Word of God and prayer.
You don’t need to get it from anywhere else. I know people who try to feel good. Why do people turn to alcohol so that they
can feel good? Drown all their wrong
feelings and feel good. Why do people
relax by unlawful things? Long ago I met
a man of God, a pastor. I stayed with
him in
The reason why we cannot have good character and we
failed other people, we react, we lose our temper, we lose our cool is because
you didn’t feel good in yourself. If
whatever happens on the outside, you feel this peace, love, joy and goodness, I
don’t think you could ever be angry. You
are angry because something inside snapped.
When you learn how to generate the good emotion from the Word of God and
from the Holy Spirit of God, first you need to divide that from the wrong
thought that are generated by the wrong emotions. These wrong emotions need to
be dealt with. Separate them and allow
God’s Word to come and God will say all right his desire is correct. But this thing is wrong here. This one is wrong. This is from your soul. This is from your body. This is from your own mind. And you know where it all stands and then you
pray in God and allow God to generate all the right emotions on your
inside. And you learn a key secret in
Christian life, how to feel good in the presence of God. Pray in tongues, meditate on the Word. Whenever you have a bad day, don’t go and sit
in front the TV until you feel good and get over. That’s not the way. You will get worse. Go aside have some time of prayer or go for
a walk. Go for a prayer meeting or a
worship service. At the end of it all
your emotions will get dealt with. You
feel good. The key is being Christ like
24 hours is in learning how to keep that goodness flowing in your life. That sense of well - being. So that in every situation that sense of
well-being is flowing on your inside and you could deal with every situation
with the character of Jesus Christ.
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