Following Your Feelings

FOLLOWING YOUR FEELINGS

Jeremiah 17:9

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Introduction: A feeling is an internal sensation or emotion. It is an involuntary response to a mental or physical stimulus. Since feelings are involuntary they are neither right nor wrong. They just are. However, what we do about our feelings are right or wrong, good or bad. Too often the actions we take and how we deal with our feelings is wrong. There are three common mistaken views that some of us would embrace concerning our feelings. They are expressed in the statements: "I trust my feelings", "God knows how I really feel", and "I don’t feel led". Let us consider each of these statements.

I. I trust my feelings.

A. Proverbs 28:26 "He that trusts in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walks wisely, he shall be delivered."

B. Feelings and emotions have a definite place in our lives, but they should never lead us.

C. "Emotions don’t make a good engine. They only make a good caboose." - Robert AuBuchon, Trinity Baptist Church

D. The fact that feelings change is pictured in a conversation overheard between two young women: "I hear you broke your engagement to Joe. What happened?" "Oh, it’s just that my feelings toward him aren’t the same." "Are you returning his ring?" "Oh, no! My feelings toward the ring haven’t changed a bit!" -James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 343.

E. It is terribly amusing how many different climates of feeling one can go through in one day. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906- )

F. Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it."

G. God’s Word, the Bible - not our feelings - is our authority

H. Feelings come and feelings go

And feelings are deceiving;

My warrant is the Word of God,

Naught else is worth believing.

- Attributed to Martin Luther, quoted in The Adversary, Mark Bubeck, Moody Press, p. 13

I. Feelings are no substitute for facts and faith..

J. 2 Peter 1:20-21 "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. [21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

K. An airplane pilot is not to trust his own instincts in a storm, but to trust the instrument panel. Instincts can be wrong if he experiences vertigo. Just as a pilot can get so jostled around that he loses his sense of up and down, we can get so jostled around by the philosophy of this world that we lose our sense of right and wrong. We have an instrument panel that is more reliable than our own feelings.- Robert L. Russell, "God’s Design for Marriage," Preaching Today, Tape No. 166.

L. Acts 24:25 "And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."

II. God knows how I feel; He’ll make an exception in my case.

A. The favorite "biblical" phrase of those using this statement is pulled from 1 Samuel 16:7 "… man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

B. God knows my heart. My actions may be wrong but my heart is in the right place.

C. Gwenn Shamlin in her course on weight loss states that while David sinned with Bathsheba in his heart David’s heart was still with God. David’s heart at the moment of adultery was anyehere but with God!

D. Matthew 15:18-19 "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:"

E. Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

F. Making this excuse is nothing more than moral and situational relativism.

G. Understand that God is a God of law, truth, justice, holiness, and righteousness. God NEVER, NEVER, NEVER excuses sin. He makes no exceptions.

H. Romans 6:23a "The wages of sin is death…"

I. If sin is a problem to you, don’t try to rationalize it, excuse it, minimize it or explain it away. Rather, confess it, then repent of it and seek God’s forgiveness.

J. "We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse." - Rudyard Kipling - Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 123