Stop Trying to Feel Right -- Believe!

Thank God for Pastor Prince.

One of the most important lessons that I have learned

If we are disappointed in ourselves, if we are angry with ourselves, it is because we still trust ourselves, we still think that there is some good in us.

Paul tells us how we are supposed to respond to our feelings:

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6: 11)

Too many believers want to fix their feelings, trying to shape their moods so that they will proper in their lives.

John prayed for his beloved Gaius as well as every other believer:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." (3 John 2)

"Soul prosperity" depends on walking the Truth:

"3For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. 4I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." (3 John 3-4)

We find the Truth in Christ (John 14: 6) and His Word:

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." (John 17: 17)

The more that we see Him in the Word, that more that we walk by faith, believing what God has said instead of the circumstances of the world or the feelings in our flesh, then our soul prospers, and so do we.

"Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)" (2 Corinthians 5: 6-7)

Faith is not some notion of hyperspirituality which speaks to some realm not yet present to us, but rather recognizing based on God's Word what is right now before us:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report." (Hebrews 11: 1-2)

Jesus Christ holds this entire Universe together (Colossians 1: 17-20) and He is closer than a brother (Proverbs 18: 24). He promises that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13: 5).

The problem for too many of us is that we live in the realm of our senses instead of receiving Himself and His Kingdom by faith. Some skeptics may counter our need to walk by faith by charging that God should manifest Himself to our senses. Paul explains why this cannot be:

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Hebrews 11: 3)

God cannot recreate the world for us so that we may believe, for in the Beginning He called all that He made "good" and therefore cannot go back on His Word.

We have to accept by faith that Jesus Christ died for our sins because Jesus died "once for all" (Hebrews 1:1-3). He cannot die a second time, lest he minister an injustice.

Besides, our feelings merely respond to whatever we are thinking, and so instead of getting balled up in fixing our feelings, we are called to renew our minds through the Truth of God's Word:

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12: 2)

We walk by faith, seeing what is invisible:

"By faith he [Moses] forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." (Hebrews 11: 27)

Moses can serve as an example for all of us who live the world of men dead in their trespasses(Egypt) to enter the Promised Land. As long as we look on Jesus, we are transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

What we see with the eyes of our understanding (Ephesians 1: 17-18) cannot be effect by how we feel. Rest in your righteousness, stand still and see the Salvation of the Lord (Exodus 14: 13), and let Him bless you.