emotions on Authentic Faith

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...

Pastor: Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; People: for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting. Pastor: The Lord builds up Jerusalem; People: ...

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...

The famous medieval reformer and mystic, St. John of the Cross, wrote about some of the differences between the early days of a new convert and the long road of obedience that makes up the spiritual l...

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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

But when the cross is working deeply a believer comes to know himself. He realizes how undependable are his ideas, feelings and desires.

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...

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...

The spiritual discipline of honoring the body helps us find our way between the excesses of a culture that glorifies and objectifies the body and the excesses of Christian tradition that have often de...

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

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...

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...

It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. "And...

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...

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 ...

Lord Jesus, We come to you today convicted of our own sin. When we read your call for the church to be united, we have to admit that we have fallen short. We have gossiped against your body, we have ...

The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why...

Loving God, we confess today: We don’t even know what love truly is. We talk about love when we talk about favorite television shows and foods. We talk about love as if it happens to us. We describe l...

The more I use stuff to fill up my hungers, the more distance I put between God and myself. And as I continue to fill up my infinite hungers with finite things (when I run through the Starbucks drive-...

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...

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...

Pastor: Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs.   Almighty God, You have enriched Your Church with the proclamation of the Gospel [...

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...

To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with th...

All forms of worship is like fire— it is a good servant, but it is a bad master.

A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook.

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. (Psalm 25:1 NRSV) When I’ve read this line previously, I’ve sometimes assumed that the main way I would lift up my soul was in personal prayer or corporate worship. ...