Faith: Far More than Feeling

Many believers still live in the realm of the five senses.

God does not want us to live there. In fact, much of the time, our feelings are informed by what we are thinking, and nothing more.

Paul advises believers to reckon themselves "dead" in their bodies, but alive in Christ. He was not making a plea for "Christian Science" error which claims that the body is not real, and the world is just an evil manifestation of nothing but deception. We do not live in response to our feelings, but rather in response to God's Word, which transforms our mind to walk by faith, not by sight.

For too long, I judged God's love for me based on feelings. If I did not feely "tingly" all over. When the "feeling" was gone, I "felt" that God did not love me, or that I was all alone.

We do not  judge God's love for us based on our feelings or our circumstances, but based on the Cross, and the blood that speaks better things than the blood of Abel.

God's love is based on the Truth, the Truth which sets us free, which our minds are renewed to receive, which ours senses are discerned to submit to.

Righteousness is a gift,  along with grace, the unmerited favor of God which looks past our failings to fill us with His Spirit.

This verse has communicated more to me than I would have ever imagined:

"11Likewise 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, myself included, haved lived this life trying to control our feelings, keep our emotions in check. The Christian life is "Christ" and "I Am Nothing." We identity with Him, not with ourselves, not with our feelings.

Wow -- this lesson has taken a great deal of time. The solution is to look at Jesus Christ:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. " (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

We must also believe in His love, regardless of how we feel:

"16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3: 16-19)

Paul prayed for the Ephesians believers, and for all of us, that we would seek a greater revelation of God's love. This love is not a feeling, nor an action that we commit, but the Work that Christ Jesus has accomplished at the Cross (1 John 4: 10)

This love is perfected in us, in that God the Father sees us in His own Son:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

We rest in this truth based on God's Word, and our thoughts and feelings will catch up.