Mastering Your Emotions

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Mastering Your Emotions

• Proverbs 2528  Whoever has no rule over his own
  spirit Is like a city broken down, without walls

Pastor Handel Smith
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Todays Flow

• Prayer
• Worship
• Feelings Facts and Faith
• Separating the Precious from the Worthless
• Three greatest emotions- Exercise
• How to pursue your heart
• Wrap-up
• Prayer

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Emotions a Wide Spectrum of Feelings

• Negative
• Discouragement
• Depression
• Sadness
• Sorrow
• Grief
• Melancholy
• Misery
• Moaning
• Dejection
• Confusion
• Fear
• Remorse
• Cold-withdrawn
• Jealous
• Hate
• Envy
• Bitter
• Unforgiving

• Positive
• Joy
• Happiness
• Cheerfulness
• Excitement
• Stimulation-Horny
• Love-compassion
• Kindness
• Zeal
• Preference
• Pride
• Expectations

Spiritual Christian will be motivated by faith,
conscience, his intuition and by the word!
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Gods Desire for Emotions

• He created you with emotions
• He does not desire that you live under the
  control of your feelings
• He wants to sanctify them and enhance them as a
  tool through which our human spirit can flow to
  give Godly feelings.
• Luke 956.. For the Son of man is not come to
  destroy mens lives, but to save them.. And they
  went to another village

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Emotions Separating the Precious from the
Worthless

• Understanding that there will always be a
  wrestling with our emotions
• Jeremiah 15
• Gut-level Prayer- Honest prayer
• Spending Time in Gods Word
• Understand that trust and repentance lead to
  freedom
• Galatians 220 I am crucified with Christ ..

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Feelings and emotions have a definite place in
our lives, but they should never lead us.  I've
heard it said, "Emotions don't make a good
engine.  They only make a good caboose."
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Can you imagine a train trying to be pulled by
the caboose?  To do so the train quickly become
inoperable because the caboose has no power on
its own to pull or push.
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The Shifting Sands of Emotions

• Matthew 726-27  "But everyone who hears these
  sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be
  like a foolish man who built his house on the
  sand 27 "and the rain descended, the floods
  came, and the winds blew and beat on that house
  and it fell. And great was its fall.

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The Shifting Sands of Emotions

• We all have lived our lives at one point or
  another by the rule of "If it feels good do it."
  To live by our feelings suppresses and replaces
  the truth of God's Word in our lives.  Over and
  over our lives are being built upon the shifting
  sands of "I don't feel like it!"
•     - I don't feel like going to Church.     - I
  don't feel like reading the Bible.     - I don't
  feel like Praying.
• Sad as it is, we place these biblical tasks of
  our lives along with taking out the trash!  "I
  don't feel like taking out the trash right now!"

Judges 176  In those days there was no king in
Israel everyone did what was right in his own
eyes.
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The Shifting Sands of Emotions

• Feelings are important but they must never be the
  deciding factor in our lives. 
• Why?  Our feelings can lead us astray from God's
  Word, the truth for our lives. 
• Feelings and emotions are irrational and can
  change quickly.  Feelings are unreliable

Matthew 1519  "For out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies
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The Shifting Sands of Emotions

• "We live in a feel-good society.  We're
  constantly making decisions based on how we feel
  at the time, only to pay a dreadful price later
  on because the truth is, it was a bad
  decision."   Take note of what Jesus says the
  outcome is when we fail to live our lives based
  on the truth,  "... and the rain descended, the
  floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that
  house and it fell. And great was its fall."

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The Solid Foundation of Facts Faith

• . Just the Facts . . . . facts God's Word
• The Bible not our feelings is our authority. 
• Jesus speaks of His words, the truth, as a solid
  rock that will not shift of sift out from
  underneath us.  
• The only unchanging reality in our lives is
  God's authoritative word.

Isaiah 408  The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever."
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The Solid Foundation of Facts Faith

• Jesus says the wise man is the one who builds his
  life on the Word.  It would be unwise for us to
  discount God's Word for what we might happen to
  be feeling at the moment.  "God's Word is truer
  than my feelings, my experiences, my
  circumstances including everything in this
  world."  - Andrea Groenewald (Campus Crusade for
  Christ)

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The Solid Foundation of Facts Faith

• David's life was a mess because he had allowed
  his feelings to be his guide rather than God's
  Word. 
• After David was caught in his sin he could have
  dealt with it with his feelings of just saying,
  "I'm sorry."  But that's not what God requires. 
• God is looking for repentance not just sorry
  feelings.

Psalms 323-5  When I kept silent, my bones grew
old Through my groaning all the day long. 4 For
day and night Your hand was heavy upon me My
vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my
iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will
confess my transgressions to the LORD," And You
forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
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A BIBLICAL EXAMPLE

• What was plaguing David?  Was just  guilt of
  hoping not to get caught or guilt knowing he had
  disobeyed the Word of God.
•  David Coveted . . . "You shall not covet your
  neighbor's wife," (Ex 2017)
•  David committed Adultery  . . . "You shall not
  commit adultery." (Ex 2014)
•  David Stole . . . "You shall not steal."  (Ex
  2015)  avid Murdered . . . "You shall not
  murder."  (Ex 2013)

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• Just Have Faith . . . . Faith trust belief
  in God's Word
• Faith is to take God at His word regardless of
  what our feelings, intuitions, gut reaction,
  logic or whatever else is speaking in our lives.
• All the hero's of faith listed in Hebrews 11 are
  those who by faith believed and obeyed God's Word
  despite their feelings or circumstances

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• Just Do It!
• 1 John 319-21  And by this we know that we are
  of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before
  Him. 20 For if our heart condemns us, God is
  greater than our heart, and knows all things. 
  Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we
  have confidence toward God.

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• Our feelings will tell us ... "Don't love
  him/her!  They have done you wrong!"   But God's
  Word says, "But love your enemies."

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• So what are we to do?
• Luke 54-6  When He had stopped speaking, He said
  to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down
  your nets for a catch." 5 But Simon answered and
  said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night
  and caught nothing nevertheless at Your word I
  will let down the net." 6 And when they had done
  this, they caught a great number of fish, and
  their net was breaking

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Just do it!

• Just start saying ... "... nevertheless at Your
  word I will ..." and watch God bless you for
  living life according to His Word.
• We need to press on!
• Wrestle.. Pray.. Soak in His word
• When we fail..His forgiveness and freedom can be
  found!
• Philippians 313-14 .. Forgetting what lies
  behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead..
  I press toward the goal for the prize of the
  upward call of God in Christ

Your word is lamp to my feet and light to my
path" ... "Your Word have I hid in my heart that
I might not sin against You God."