“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. " "But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be.”
- Jeremiah 17:9-10
The heart of man is deceitful. We can't trust our feelings because they can be manipulated by satan. For example, picture a husband and wife, and his wife starts using heroine, she says it makes her feel good, she says "I won't stop because this is what I want to do and it feels good so it's not wrong." Does the husband allow his wife to continue using or does he drive her to a rehab and pray for her? The latter of course because that is genuine love. See; love is not just these happy go lucky 'feel good' butterflies. No. Love is sometimes firm and bold; and for good reason. Like it says in the Word: “If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell. (Matthew 18:8-9)
That means if feelings are what has to be hurt in order to prevent someone you love from spending an eternity apart from God, then so be it, you Love them enough to tell them the Truth. Just like Jesus did the lady at the well. (In John 4) He didn't say "go and keep sleeping with people's husbands" he said 'go and sin no more!' He didn't condone her sin but he also didn't condemn her for it. That is Honest Love.
Then the Word goes on to remind us: “Watch that you don’t treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don’t you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven? (Matthew 18:10)
Meaning we pray for them above everything else and we treat the situation with great care, as you would a child that does not understand they are wrong. We have to be sure not to disturb the work that God is already doing in them. We can't transform anyone from the inside out but God can. We just have to trust Him to do what He does best. Then we have to deny the lies that we have accepted because of our "feelings", and stand on the Truth of the Word which is indisputable. And all of this we must do in Love..... Honest, Open, Careful Love.
Further more: When we rely on our feelings, we are relying on Self. Taking our faith away from Jesus and quintessentially putting that faith in ourselves. And that is how we end up in snares that can take us out. Be diligent in recognizing lies, lies that you've accepted as truth from others and the ones that you have told yourself. Know that feelings are extremely malleable. And use discernment from the Holy Spirit, whose inherent character is Honesty, and cannot be colored nor tainted by the environment; in order to decipher Fact from Feeling. And Let God, who actually knows the heart, get to the root of it, then reveal to you the Truth as it truly is, not as it appears to be. In the long run, it will save you and those you love a lot of heartache.
- Brianna Carey ©
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