emotions on Assurance

Dear Lord Jesus, we feel our sins. They bite and gnaw and terrify us. Where shall we go? We will look to You, Lord Jesus, and believe in You. Although our faith is often weak, we look to You and find ...

Father–nothing escapes your notice, is beyond your care or too hard for you to take on, whether it concerns nations or individuals. You have a heart for all the world–not just our little piece of it. ...

We can rest knowing the Lord’s presence transcends what we feel. Just like the flow of the air, he is moving even if his movements cannot be perceived. And where God is not just felt but known, faith ...

Faith isn’t a feeling; it’s a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain.

My faith life, like that of every one else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be there. And so I’m not asked on a Sunday morni...

The desire to feel loved is the last illusion: let it go and you will be free

O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clench...

What causes anxiety? I offer this list so you can engage in an exercise… genetic predispositions parenting (overprotective, overcontrollers, inconsistent responders) early childhood experiences tha...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we often forget Who it is that we worship. You, Lord, are the great God Almighty and our Heavenly Father. Yet, at times, we deny that truth by living in fear and respo...

Awareness of what I’m feeling generally brings the awareness that I am not my feelings. And then I can begin to see you more clearly and relate to you more intimately. It’s a little like shifting my f...

Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we...

Ralph Waldo Emerson describes a true friend as a person with whom I can think aloud. This absence of the need to put on a façade is an essential and foundational aspect of all genuine friendships. He ...

In navigation, the term reckoning, as in dead reckoning, is the process of calculating where you are. To do that, you have to know where you’ve been and what factors influenced how you got to where yo...

While taking a flight in a small plane in Washington state, marriage counselors Les and Leslie Parrot were given some interesting information from their pilot: We crossed over the islands of Puget S...

Dear Lord, Today I thought of the words of Vincent Van Gogh. It is true that there is an ebb and flow but the sea remains the sea. You, oh God, are the sea. Although I experience many ups and downs i...

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.

The more one probes the workings of an emotional life the more he will be convinced of its vacillation and undependability. No one should wonder that a child of God who walks by emotion rather than by...

We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...

David Seamands (1922-2006) was an author, scholar, evangelical renewal leader and counselor. In an article for Christianity Today , he shares his earnest experience of many of his patients who we...

Too often we are given a choice—emotions or faith and belief. Yet as Dan Allender and Tremper Longman observe,  Emotion links our internal and external worlds. To be aware of what we feel can open ...

I can remember that afternoon as if it were yesterday. I (Doug) was standing out in the middle of the green grass of the quad on campus, singing as loudly as I could. Twenty of my Christian friends an...

I want to feel what I feel. What’s mine. Even if it’s not happiness, whatever that means. Because you’re all you’ve got.

One of my continual battles is the one that happens in my own heart and mind. I continue to discover and fight negative patterns of thought and emotion that are shaped less by Jesus and more by the wo...

When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something—a belief, a value, a behavior—that they hold dear. Peopl...

Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot...

By Bill Gaultiere Many Christians are stunted in their spiritual growth because they don’t understand or express their deep emotions and desires. As pastors, ministry leaders, caregivers, or parents...

O Lord, we are too easily discouraged when things don’t go our way, when we face trials, testings, and even persecution. Lord forgive the weakness of our faith. We too often respond in anger and hurtf...

To handle the things of God without worship is always to falsify them.

Love is not an affection feeling, rather it’s a steady wish for the other’s good as far as it can be obtained.

But what seems to happen in our lived practice of worship is that we don’t simply enjoy the stimulation; we expect it from God. We don’t just value “positive” emotions, but in our lived experience and...