To worry about being hard-hearted, for example, is as ridiculous as worrying about not worrying enough. If you are worrying about this, it proves not that you are worrying too little but too much. To worry about feeling hard-hearted means you have become so addicted to worry that the moment you stop worrying, you start worrying about not worrying.

If, like most people, who think love, joy and peace are feelings, it is because you have missed the Bible’s meaning of those words. It shows that what you mean by those words is not what God means but what worldly people mean when they use these words.

Over and over the Bible commands us to love, rejoice and “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18), “Make every effort to live in peace with all men . . .” (Hebrews 12:14) and so on. To command anyone to feel something is ridiculous. People can only obey commands to do things, not to feel things. Feelings are involuntary and they are natural, not spiritual.

It is easiest to see the stark difference between the worldly definition and God’s definition of these words by looking at what romantic novels mean by love and comparing it with what Jesus meant when he told us to love our enemies. The Bible defines love not by what one feels but by what one does: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you . . . But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.” (Luke 6:27-28,35). Again, when Jesus was asked to explain what it means to love one’s neighbor he gave the parable of the good Samaritan in which love is not about feelings but about looking after a wounded traveler (Luke 10:27-37). James 2:16 demonstrates how useless and unimportant feelings are when it says, “If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”

Likewise, joy and peace are about what one chooses to do and believe, regardless of what one feels.

God’s Word places love, joy and peace with the fruit of the Spirit:

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. . . .

This proves that when God speaks of love, joy and peace, he is referring to spiritual qualities, not fleshly/carnal emotions. They come from the heart of God, not from the human heart. All of the fruit of the Spirit are virtues, not feelings. This applies as much to the first three as to any of the others. Just as patience and self-control (also fruit of the Spirit) are displayed when one feels explosive anger but refuses to be dominated by that feeling and instead controls it, so love, joy and peace are not feelings but are manifested when one rises above feelings to choose to act virtuously.

It is also a common mistake to think one should use feelings as an indicator of divine leading. To slightly adapt what I have written elsewhere:

The enemy of our souls is the master deceiver because that is all he can do. The devil cannot change reality. He cannot change the fact that God loves you with all of his unlimited love and that Christ died for the sins of the entire world, which has to include every sin you have ever committed. So all he can do is mess with your feelings, hoping that you will start to believe them rather than believe in the cleansing and forgiving power of Christ and the love of God.

Even if you feel you are beyond God’s forgiveness, that feeling is a lie from hell as serious as claiming that Christ did not die for the sins of the world.

Until you realize that false feelings will continue no matter how devoted you are to Christ, you’ll be so vulnerable to false feelings that the tempter will keep piling them on more than ever. None of us ever gets to the point where we are no longer tempted. Unwanted thoughts and feelings would only slightly taper off if the tempter has tried so often without it ruffling your feathers that he begins to believe that such an attack will never succeed with you and it is a complete waste of his time to keep playing with your feelings. If in the past he has had a lot of success out of confusing you with false feelings, however, it will take a long while before he is convinced that this approach will no longer fool you.

We cannot stop powerful feelings that are contrary to God’s truth – even Jesus was tempted – but we can repent of caving into the temptation to accept those feelings as truth. We should repent of being so carnal as to think that a mere feeling, rather than God’s Word, indicates spiritual truth. From now on, we should steadfastly refuse to believe that any feeling, no matter how strong, persistent and convincing, is a more reliable source of truth than the Bible.

Another big mistake people make is to assign magical powers to thoughts. All sorts of weird thoughts flit through the human brain. They are just part of being human and often they are temptation, but what matters is not whether bad thoughts come but whether we act on them or go out of our way to cultivate them. Even if we were to act on bad thoughts, however, Jesus is eager to forgive us. He died precisely so that we could be forgiven of all sin.

It is sheer superstition to think that our thoughts affect other people or that unwanted thoughts affect our relationship with God. An anxiety disorder is the most common reason for people falling into such superstitious fear. Anxiety keeps nagging away at us, causing us to worry about things that feel so real and yet are actually of no concern. It is not unusual for people to suffer from anxiety disorders without realizing it. You need to read other pages on this website (such as Forever Lost Your Salvation? Spiritual Fear & Worry Examined and When I Feel Guilty or Beyond Forgiveness) to understand the weird things that anxiety disorders produce.

Every day, I hear from casualities of this spiritually unhealthy practice. From all over the world, distressed people keep writing to me, needlessly worried about their relationship with God. Not surprisingly, their e-mails are filled with the word feel. They can barely say anything about their relationship with God without using the word every few sentences. Their own words highlight the heart of their problem.

Spiritual things are not physical, but neither are they emotional. We all understand the first part of that truth, but many of us are highly confused about the second. We know how ridiculous it would be to try using a ruler to measure spiritual growth, or a heart monitor to detect spiritual activity. Using feelings as a spiritual indicator is equally inappropriate. In fact, exalting feelings to that position is downright dangerous. It is as ungodly as using tarot cards, or some other occult practice, for spiritual guidance. Why? Because we are called to live by faith, not by feelings or circumstances.

God and his Word never change. Feelings, on the other hand, are as fickle as the wind.

Imagine being hoodwinked into believing if the wind blows from the east, God loves you; if it blows from the west, God is furious with you; if it blows from the north, you are eternally damned. That would be both terrifying and insulting to God. What is just as terrifying and insulting to God, however, is being conned into believing our feelings indicate God’s attitude toward us. It is a nightmarish, spiritually dangerous superstition that is nonsensical to the spiritually mature but grips some people so powerfully that they actually believe it.

To treat the wind as an indicator of our relationship with God would be to dethrone God in our lives and deify the weather. Expecting our feelings to reveal how God sees us, however, is just as mistaken. To be freed from this bondage is to be free indeed.

The enemy of our souls – the deceiver – cannot mess with God’s truth, but he readily messes with our feelings. God allows it, because he expects us to live by faith. Feelings toss us around like a boat in a storm, but faith keeps us anchored to God, preventing us from drifting onto rocks.

Forget about feeling God’s presence, or feeling peace, or feeling forgiven, or feeling loved, or feeling anything else. Let go of all of that. It has nothing to do with spiritual reality. Instead, honor God by resting in the certainty that no matter how you feel – numb, scared, confused, in physical or emotional pain, or whatever – God is with you. Emotions may rage within, keeping you from feeling peace. Nevertheless, you have peace with God. You are no longer God’s enemy, but his friend, because of the spiritual miracle Christ worked by his death and resurrection. That means that no matter how bizarre, or even terrifying, your circumstances, God is with you, and he is all you need. Regardless of how much everything within and without screams the opposite, God remains warm, good, patient, kind, gentle, loving, understanding, compassionate and generous.

Our emotions and sensibilities are as changeable as the weather, but God remains steadfast and faithful. No matter what the weather is outside, the God who has made your body his home (Scriptures) remains in you, in all his power and wonder. On cold, dreary days, the God enthroned in you is just as warm, powerful, loving, and delightful, as on exquisite, sunny days.

The Christian life is not about feeling, nor about doing, but about being.

Surprising Reasons for Feelings Going Berserk

Through absolutely no fault of their own, even spiritual giants can be hurled into bewilderingly deep and prolonged anxiety or depression. Moreover, either of these conditions not only send one’s feelings haywire, many experiencing it have not the slightest clue as to what is happening to them. In fact, it is not uncommon to even not realize one has anxiety or depression. The afflicted, of course, are acutely aware of bizarre or disturbing thoughts and emotions but often have no clue of the cause. This makes it disturbingly easy for spiritual people to leap to the wrong presumption that what is happening to them must be spiritual in origin.

In the general community, there is so much ignorance about depression and anxiety that appallingly many people not only make fools of themselves, but grieve God, by stupidly blaming the victims, even though they typically battle the onslaught with such intensity and heroism that all of heaven wants to cheer their efforts. Self-appointed experts shoot off two-bit advice with the arrogance of an ignoramuses thinking they can dismantle a nuclear warhead.

Sidenote: We often unknowingly blunder into situations that are more critical, delicate and complex than we ever imagine. At such times, the desperate need is to be graced with enormous helpings of humility, kindness, gentleness, patience, compassion and self-control, beyond anything we have ever before known. Blurting out the first thing that enters less than God-sized minds is as safe as firing a shotgun into a crowd in the hope of killing a fly that might possibly be what is bothering someone.

Anxiety and depression are so closely related that professionals often prescribe the same treatment for them. It is not unusual, in fact, to be assaulted by both maladies at the same time.

Let’s look briefly at these two conditions, just to highlight how divorced from spiritual factors both they, and the unexpected feelings they generate, are.

Tragedies such as child abuse, trauma, betrayal, abandonment, death of a loved one, and so on, can not only send one reeling at the time but, unless fully resolved instead of shoved into the back of the don’t-go-there closet, they can leave a person with emotions that for decades are out of sync with current reality.

In addition to a wide range of experiences, any of which can play havoc with a normal emotional response, there are also a wide range of imbalances in our body chemistry, any of which can likewise mess with our feelings. Our bodies are so finely tuned that a little too much or too little of just one aspect of our body chemistry can do it. Hormones (serotonin is just one) and even a vitamin or mineral deficiency can hurl a person into long term depression or anxiety that stubbornly resists concerted efforts to heave oneself out of. Even an iron deficiency can mysteriously plunge a person into bewildering, on-going anxiety. Imagine thinking oneself a spiritual failure because of a vitamin or mineral deficiency! It happens.

When we fail to grasp the difference between the emotional and the spiritual, or between current circumstances and eternity, it is inevitable that we – ably supported by Satan – will squander too much of our lives needlessly beating ourselves up.

No matter how cleansed of sin a person is in the eyes of the Holy Lord, anxiety can feel indistinguishable from a nagging, or even torturously guilty, conscience.

Anxiety is so unsettling that it floods many others with overwhelming doubts, no matter how Spirit-filled and faith-filled, they might be.

Courage does not mean lacking fear, but forcing oneself onward, despite it. Actually, courage cannot even exist where there is no fear. Without fear, it might be ignorance, foolhardiness, or simply the luck of having lived a sheltered life, but it is not courage. Likewise, faith is not the absence of doubt, but forcing oneself onward, despite it.

Anxiety also robs its victims of a feeling that people typically mistake for peace, even if the person is exceptionally godly and spiritually powerful. For any who come to Christ, all enmity with the Holy Lord is removed. They have the most precious thing in the universe: peace with God. Yet, despite being totally at peace with God, any Christian plagued with this medical condition feels no peace. For them, spiritual peace is choosing to believe God is in control, despite every inner alarm blaring.

As we can guess from what we have seen, spiritual joy is not the absence of sorrow, or absence of problems, nor is it being in physical or emotional peak health. It is about wrenching your eyes upward, despite all that hell throws at you. Paul described himself and his world-changing, Spirit-filled companions, as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Clinical depression not only makes those it afflicts feel joyless, it makes them feel emotionally numb. People who confuse the emotional with the spiritual, however, are likely to mistake this for a spiritual problem. Emotional deadness has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual deadness, and it being hard to feel, has nothing to do with hardness of heart.

Regardless of the precise reason for feelings going haywire, however, the end result is a priceless opportunity for vital spiritual growth, by learning to live by faith, not feelings. What makes this so precious is that we might acquaint ourselves with various spiritual principles by reading or pew-warming but only through such challenging opportunities can we actually build these principles into our lives so they become life-changing and eternally rewarding.

It is not God’s way to cause babies to instantly become competent adults. Neither is it his way to zap us into spiritual maturity in an instant. Just as one cannot become a concert pianist overnight, it invariably takes year upon year of painstaking practice to become proficient at living by faith, instead of being thrown by feelings. It is not loud-mouthed spectators or well-read academics who, in heaven’s eyes are the spiritual elite, but those who keep slogging it out in the daily grind of oppressive circumstances. Earth might not recognize these achievers – and they themselves might think they are failures – but heaven will honor them for all eternity.

Peter was walking on the water, and doing fine – until distracted by the wind and waves. That’s like us in our walk with God. Emotions and circumstances are superficial. The substance is Christ. Even if, like Peter, you momentarily forget Jesus and begin to sink, your Lord is still there to grab you and keep you safe (Matthew 14:29-31). Keep your eyes on him, however, and astonishing things can happen.

Because you are human, you have feelings. At the same time, because you are a child of God, you are greater than your feelings. Just as our physical bodies are part of God’s creation, so are emotions. It is wrong to despise either of them, but that does not mean they always function perfectly, nor that we can rely on either of them for spiritual guidance. Since “. . . the things of God’s Spirit . . . are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14, emphasis mine) do not expect them to be emotionally discerned. Times when we cannot sense God with our emotions should surprise us no more than when we cannot detect him with our physical senses.

Having feelings is fine; being bullied by them is not. Your feelings do not define you, nor limit you. Just as money is not spiritual currency, neither are feelings. Feelings are a part of your earthly existence, but when it comes to spiritual discernment, keep devaluing them until they mean nothing to you. Don’t fear or run from unpleasant feelings, nor become enslaved to nice ones. Neither try to eradicate feeling. Simply dethrone them. Let God, not feelings, be your God. This has nothing to do with escapism, and everything to do with embracing spiritual reality.

Just as faith takes you way beyond what you see, it soars way beyond what you feel. To live by faith is to be freed from earthly restraints. It takes you into spiritual reality; an entirely different dimension that is not limited by what you see or feel.