People who have been under my ministry have heard me say “Let your mind explain reality to your emotions” many times. Emotions are powerful and important. Life would be dull without them. Jesus showed emotion on many occasions. Emotions are great, but they are the dessert in life, not the main course. When they drive the train it’s easy to get off the track. As in many things in life, balance is what is needed.
The problem comes when emotions are used for a purpose other than which they were created. When they are used to get a desired reaction, that is manipulation. Advertisers, communicators and even churches do this all the time. People are quicker to respond to something that has stirred their emotions than they are to objective truth. It’s not a bad thing to have emotions in church. The right emotion at the right time expressed in the right way is a powerful way to connect with God and others. Emotions are good things and should be part of church life and worship – but they aren’t the main thing. They are a means to an end, not the end itself. It’s OK to “Feel good,” but if that is the ultimate focus of a service or event then something is missing. There are certain dangers from focusing on emotion in church and getting people to feel something instead of inviting people to believe something and then respond to that belief.
God gave us emotions to respond to truth in a meaningful way. Jesus said we are to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). It takes both. An emotional response to something that is true in appropriate. But when we focus on the feeling instead of the truth behind it, we leave ourselves open to deception and disappointment. When we expect to always “feel” good, or “feel” close to God or “feel” His presence, then we limit Him and put our emotions before the facts.
As a pastor, I know it can be tempting to play to people’s emotions to get them to like a service or a sermon. Stories that touch our sentiments, music that stirs our feelings or testimonies that stimulate our emotions are short-cuts to getting a response. Some people look for that in a church, but when someone depends on an emotional ‘fix’ each Sunday they aren’t growing in faith.
I’ve been in churches when the pastor gave an invitation to receive Jesus after the service but no one came forward publicly. To their way of thinking, this meant the sermon was a failure. To save face and remove embarrassment, the pastor would say or do things to try to manipulate a response, usually out of guilt. That’s not the way to measure the success of a message or service.
It’s not that long ago that churches had a revival in the spring and fall. A guest speaker would come and special music was provided. If ‘successful,’ people would get moved to greater faithfulness in their Christian life. However, these commitments often didn’t last but gradually faded as the emotional high from the services faded. Then in another 6 months another revival to produce another jolt of emotion was needed to jump-start them again. That’s not how the Christian life is meant to be lived.
Feeling “good” after church is fine, but if it is our feelings we fixate on when leaving instead of a total response to the truth of God’s Word, it won’t last. Still, that’s often what people look for in a church and the yardstick by how they measure their Sunday morning experience. Yet church isn’t about you or me, is it? It’s about God and faithfully serving Him. I personally know the pressure a pastor feels to have the people like the Sunday morning experience so they come back. The amount of money given in the offering is directly related to people liking the experience enough to come back and contribute financially. Those often become the measuring stick we use to determine the success or failure of a church or pastor. My heart goes out to pastors who faithfully preach God’s Word to people who are cold and immersed in sin they don’t want to give up. I hope you’re not one of those kind of people!
Romans 5:6-8 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Do you let your mind explain reality to your emotions, or do your feelings overly influence your moods and decisions?
Read the verses above. What is your mental response to this passage? What emotions come from this truth in God’s Word?
cto Rev. Dr. JERRY SCHMOYER
Christian Training Organization
Jerry@ChristianTrainingOrganization.org
(India & Africa & Spanish Outreach, Spiritual Warfare, Family Ministries, Counseling, World View)
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