What Place Do Emotions Have In the Christian Life?
Posted: Wednesday, September 09, 2009
by Douglas Cartwright
Living Words Coaching and Training
In Matthew 22: 36 we read of Jesus being asked by a Jewish expert of the Law in His day 'Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?' to which Jesus answered, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment' (vss. 37 and 38).
Jesus here taught that the greatest of all the commandments is to love the Lord. What did it mean to 'love God' biblically and within the Jewish culture in which Jesus lived and taught? In other words when Jesus or any Jewish teacher of His day taught others to love God what did they understand this to mean? Biblically to love God meant to obey God, to live by His Word.
Echoing this biblical concept of love as obedience to God's word Jesus taught, 'He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me...'
If a man love me he will keep My commandments... and the word which ye hear is not Mine but the Father's which sent me' (John 14:21, 23, 24b)
In the First Century Jewish World in which Jesus lived and taught it was understood that to love God meant to obey God's Word, to conform and live one's life by it.
And how are we told to love and obey God? With 'all our heart, souls and mind'.
What does this mean to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind?
This was a Jewish and Middle Eastern way of saying 'you are to love and obey God with all your being. With all that you are'
Jesus was saying that we are to love and obey God with all the powers and faculties of our being: with our intellect, will, body, understanding-and emotions.
Our emotions? Yes our emotions!
All of our being is to be submitted to God and used to obey Him.
And this includes the emotions.
Understanding the 'Heart' of it all
Jesus, in order to emphasize that we as God's people are to love Him and obey Him with all that we are used several different words 'heart, soul, mind,' again this was a typical Middle Eastern way of emphasizing a point.
And what was that point? Simply this: all that we are is to be devoted to God in obedience to Him. Now Jesus could have simply said 'Love God with all your heart' and this would have conveyed the same idea (though not with the same emphasis). This is because in the Bible the heart represents and is the seat of all that we think, decide, understand, imagine, feel say and do.
The heart is both the seat and source of all our activity: both inward and outward. 'The heart is not only the source of activity in human life but is also that which determines the direction and course of that life.' (M. Scott Flectcher 'The Psychology of the New Testament' p. 76)
The functions of the heart consist of the intellect or reason (Deuteronomy 29: 2-4, Proverbs 15:14), volition or will (Exodus 35:5, Deuteronomy 8:2), and emotion of all kinds (Proverbs 15:2, Deuteronomy 28:65; John 14:1, 27 Psalms 21:2)
As theologian James Dunn writes the hearts denotes,'....the innermost part of the person, the seat of emotions, but also thought and will' (The Theology of Paul the Apostle p. 74-75 Eerdmans 1998)
Thus the call to love God with all our heart is a call to obey and obey Him with our intellect/thoughts, will and EMOTIONS!
Just as our thinking, will, and bodies are to be submitted and obedient to Him so our emotions are to be submitted and obedient unto Him also. Our emotions are to serve God!
In Romans 6:13 we are told, 'Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God'
The word translated as 'member' (mele in Greek) refers to all of our human faculties: thinking, perceiving, willing and feeling. As author and scholar N.T. Wright states in commenting on Romans 6:13, 'Our limbs, and organs, and for that matter, mind, memory, imagination, emotions and will are to be put at the disposal not of sin, but of God.' (Tom Wright 'Paul for Everyone' page 109)
Just as you and I once yielded our faculties to sin and served sin with them so now we are set free in Christ to yield our faculties to God and use them to obey Him. And this includes our feelings and emotions.
All of our being is now meant for service and obedience to God! And this points us to the meaning of 'sanctified emotions'
Sanctified Emotions Defined
In I Thessalonians 5: 23 we read,
'And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole Spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ'
In the Scripture above Paul prays that our whole being would be sanctified. The word sanctified refers to that which has been 'set apart and dedicated to God for His exclusive use'. Or as Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon states, to sanctify means
'to separate from things profane and dedicate to God' (page 6 #37)
Our entire being is to be dedicated unto the Lord for His exclusive use, and as we have seen above this includes the emotions.
Sanctified Emotions the means that our emotions and desires have been set apart and dedicated unto God for His exclusive use.
Sanctified Emotions means that our emotions now serve God and God alone.
Loving God with all your heart, and Sanctified Emotions all mean the same thing: directing your emotions (and other faculties) unto God in order to obey Him and fulfill His will.
Does the Bible actually teach that you are to serve and obey God with your emotions as well as with your intellect, will, and actions?
It sure does.
The Place and Importance of Emotions in Obeying God
Over and over again we are taught in the Scriptures that we are to serve God WITH our emotions.
In Psalms 100:2 we are exhorted to 'Serve the Lord with gladness (or joy)'; obedience to God is to be accompanied with joy!
In Deuteronomy 28:47 Israel is told that one of the reasons they will come into judgment is because they did not serve or obey the Lord with '.... joyfulness and gladness of heart...' for all His blessings upon them.
In Psalms 1:2 the psalmist writes of the man whose '...delight is in the law of the lord and in His Law he meditates day and night'
The word translated as delight is a very strong emotive term in Hebrew . It means to 'turn one's heart towards something with strong passionate desire' (Chaphets: 'Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis' pages 231-233).
The man in Psalms 1:2 has such a strong desire and passion for the word of God that his passion leads and motivates him to pursue it and meditate upon it day and night. In Amos 5:15 we are told to 'Love the good and hate the evil'. The word love here refers to a strong emotional attachment to and desire for something to be in your presence or for you to be in its presence (Vines Expository Dictionary of Bible Words). It denotes an inner feeling or desire to be attached or devoted to something or someone and the external actions taken to demonstrate that desire. Hate refers to an inner feeling of detachment. It can also denote to be so repulsed by something that you take action to remove it from your presence. ( Social Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul by Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch page 375, 376)
To love and hate involves not only will and action but also feeling and emotion.
We are to strongly desire what is good and of God and pursue it, and be repulsed by and reject what is sinful and ungodly. In I Peter 2:2 we are commanded 'Like new born babe desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby' The word 'desire' in the passage here means 'to long for, to intensely crave possession of;desire drected toward an object'. Just as new born babies have a strong passionate desire for the milk of their mothers we are to have strong passionate desire for the things of God as revealed in the word of God. (Strong's Greek Concordance and Thayer's Greek English Lexicon #1971; The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key To the Greek New Testament page 570)
In Philippians 2:13 Paul tells us that God '....worketh in us both to will and to do of His God pleasure' The word translated as worketh in our English text speaks of a decision and determination that arises from desire. It speaks of taking delight or pleasure in something (Thayer's Greek English Lexicon # 2309). What this tells us is that God Himself is at work in our desires and emotions inclining and directing them toward His will. God is working in us to desire and take pleasure in His will.
Over and over throughout Scripture we are taught that emotions are a vital part of our obedience to God; they are to assist and support us in fulfilling His will. As I often like to say 'emotions are meant to be our allies not our enemies in the service of God' But too often the emotions have been left out of the equation when it comes to obeying God. We talk about the need of yielding our reason, will and behavior to God in order to obey His will - but we leave the emotions out. And, I believe, we have done this to our spiritual detriment.
As author Peter Scazzero in His book 'Emotionally Healthy Spirituality' writes '...a failure to appreciate the biblical place of feelings within our larger Christian lives has done extensive danger, keeping free people in Christ in slavery' (page 70)
Why have we kept the emotions out? I believe it is because we have misunderstood the relationship between the Spirit, our emotions and the lusts of the flesh.
The Greatest Commandment of all and your Emotions (by Mike Davies)
If you want to read and benefit from the rest of this fantastic ebook 'Sanctified Emotions' go tohttp://www.livingwords.net/livingwordsebooks/index.html where it is available for purchase and download. It is packed full of practical advice and exercises for 'Sanctifying your Emotions'.
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