10/23/2009

Will over emotions

This past week I've learned something very important in the Christian walk. When I first became a Christian I allowed the emotions to take over my will. I was so amazed by God that my emotions just wanted to do everything God wanted me to do. However, after time passed the emotions wore thin and the will needed to take over, but that was a difficult task because the will has been so dependent on the emotions that my will was/is not strong enough yet. I think this is an important thing that God was/is trying to teach me.
I hear people say I don't feel God leading me in this way or that way, but I do not think that we should allow that to be an excuse anymore, unless God legitimately told you in Scripture. God commanded us to go to our city, to our country, to the world and tell others about Him. I don't necessarily think that God wanted us to be missionaries. I think He wanted us to just tell everyone we meet about Him. If I happen to go to Europe on vacation, why should I not show God's love to the people I encounter. But I'm not just talking about missions. Missions work is a great opportunity to really pour your life into a group of people, but we should not be stuck there just there.
I'm just tired of allowing my emotions take control of my will. Every time I heard a sermon I was excited to go out into the world and do what was just taught but then when I actually go out there I allow fear to stop me. I allow "circumstances" to stop me from doing what was just taught. I'm tired of allowing my emotions do whatever it wants. J. Sidlow Baxter wrote,

"I found that there was an area of me that did not want to pray... and there was a part of me that did. The part that didn't was the emotions, and the part that did was the intellect and the will... So will and I set off to pray. But the minute we turned our footsteps to go and pray all the emotions began to talk: 'we're not coming, we're not coming, we're not coming.' And I said to will, 'will can you stick it?' And will said, 'yes, if you can.' So will and I, we dragged off those wretched emotions and we went to pray, and stayed an hour in prayer.
If you asked me afterwords, 'did you have a good time?', do you think I could have said 'yes'? A good time? No, it was a fight all the way...
Suddenly one day [weeks later] while will and I were pressing our case at the throne of the heavenly glory, one of the chief emotions shouted 'Hallelujah!'and all the other emotions suddenly shouted, 'Amen!' For the first time all of me was involved in the exercise of prayer."

I found this to be interesting. I should not allow my emotions to control my will, but allow will to control my emotions. Emotions are not horrible, but they can get in the way of doing what God ultimately wants us to do for Him. I'm outs

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