Emotions Of Authentic Christian Faith

Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved

 saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when 

Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, 

he girt his fisher's coat unto him, 

(for he was naked,)

 and did cast himself into the sea.

John 21:7 

     The person who was speaking to Peter was the apostle John, (John 13:23; 21:20), and Peter is said to be "naked." The Hebrews wore undergarments, as we do underwear and to be only clad in undergarments, or poorly clad is seen as being "naked" and Peter did what a person of respect and a holder to the Hebrews position on nakedness put on his outer garment, in this case a fisherman's coat. Then Peter jumped into the sea. Was Peter far from shore, no, but he was in water but did not walk on water. Fishing was by net and this was done, not as done today in deep water with equipment, but along the shallow waters where tilapia, and a fish called St.Peter's fish are caught. I give this historical account so that there will not be a misunderstanding as to this account where Peter when he came to know that it was Jesus, the resurrected Jesus on the shoreline he was so moved, an emotional response towards Jesus that nothing was going to keep him from being with Jesus. Do you have the same emotional response about Jesus? 

     We must remember that it is not wrong to have emotions, religious emotions. Emotions can be wrong if that which is producing the emotion(s) is not according to Scripture, that which would arouse a person to do that which is not pleasing to God. We must ask ourselves: what is the source of motivation to put our faith into practice. To often emotions are that which have become subjective and produces a bad response and this can be measured, measured by Scripture. 

     Personal character determines how we exercise our life. Personal character does have a very and solemn affect on a person, yet, personal character can be changed and this must come about by elevating a habit or personal character. What does this mean? The source is that which might, and it usually is, the elevating source for a habit. An example: in your life you live up to the highest that you know and when you reach the highest you find that you must go higher and this is a temptation and leads to more temptations and forms characteristics. Yes, Satan uses this strategy to get you to go higher and higher, and yes, God does the same thing, only there is a different effect from both temptations and the forming of character. Satan will use your desire to be godly, to do godly things, but this is to cause you to form a false idea of holiness, a holiness that is beyond what flesh and blood can ever bear, it is a spiritual acrobatic performance. God does just the opposite for he elevates you by His grace into the heavenly places. What are the heavenly places? They are the places where Authentic Christian Faith can find peace, freedom, and a place where you grow into a character that is in the image of Jesus Christ. Satan brings us to a lower place, he causes a person, a church, a denomination, to lower the bar of excellence. God raises the bar so that we grow, grow in sanctification, not so that we are godly, this is an after effect, but so that we are clinging to the source which is and from God, a Holy and Just God. 

     God is leading His children to become more than they ever thought they could be, a change in personal character and is calling: "come up hither," and when you hear this call you must not sit back, rather you are to grow. God is not hiding anything from you and this includes your growth in personal character a character that is not overwhelmed by false emotions from a false source. God is bringing us to a place where He can reveal that character, a change in character leading to a change in the exercise of Authentic Christian Faith. 

     This is true love, not simply an emotional response, it is a response that manifests in your exercise of faith, a faith produced in love to your benefit, a benefit from the source of love, Jesus Christ. Jesus said: "Whoever has my commandments and obeys them, he is the one who loves me" (John 14:21). 

      Emotions play a large role in a person's faith, but, and this is most important: they must be controlled so that we do not allow emotions to lead us in actions that are contrary to the will of God, and to our harm. Cultural Christians allow themselves to be lead by emotions even though they might do philanthropic acts. Furthermore, cultural Christians have emotions much like the world around them a place where those emotions find its source. 

     Do you seek Jesus Christ? If you find yourselves to have desires or actions, or emotions contrary to God that He has set for us to have a higher interest, then we should keep from factors that cause us to act in ways that make emotions to take center stage in our hearts. Will You?

But if ye turn into me, and keep My

     commandments, and do them;

though there were of you cast out 

    unto the uttermost part of the

heaven, yet I will gather them from

   thence, and will bring them unto

the place that I have chosen to set

    My name there.

                         Nehemiah 1:9

Self-check: Use Scripture

Richard L. Crumb

 

The Faith That God Desires

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel

 which I preached unto you, which also ye have 

received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye 

are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached 

unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

1Corinthians 15: 1-2 

     Authentic Christian Faith are those who have such a faith to understand that part of the beauty of Christianity is that it integrates, that is it is you are all consumed in all dimensions of life, or true humanity. This is what is the appropriate bringing of you to compete subordination and dependence on God, not that you do not become some robot, rather that you, the whole man you, will use all of his/her faculties and become transformed by the power of God. It is by His power that a person can be used in His service and to the glory of God: "And He answering said, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself" (Luke 10:27; cf. Matthew 22:37). This love, this agape, the principled love of God should become the central role in our relationship with God. God desires that we relate to Him with love, not just philew, friendly love, no, with agape, principled love and the principles we are to love with are found in Scripture. This agape love is not a lukewarm love, it is not a love that is so emotional that a person will act out in ways that are unscriptural, things that are being advocated today. 

    Let us get this one thing straight: real worship does have emotion, and music, singing, praise, and rejoicing, but, they all must be emotions that are Authentic Christian emotions. Do we see anything other than this in the Bible? NO! Do not the pictures we see of live, and of heaven give us an emotional response? Yes! It should! We must though, not allow emotional response to become the measure of Authentic Christian Faith. Each person has a temperament so they respond often differently than another, and unless, unless, they are as being taught be such as the Penteconstals, the Charamatics, and such as the School of the Supernatural here in Redding, CA., these are to be judged by what aroused a person. 

    People are often aroused in their emotions by someone who is a good speaker and able to stimulate emotion. A good orator can whip a crown up, even a Christian crowd, into a frenzy. We see this when people are falling all over the floor, jerking, shouting, falling over backwards, even acting drunk, all from emotions that are out of control by them, but under control of a good orator. This is not the kind of emotion that pleases God. 

     Emotions that please God are when a person' response, emotion is to the truth, to a clear comprehension of the nature of God, about their own sinful nature in need of a Savior, and about His goodness to us, then, and only then is an emotional response valuable and appropriate. 

That thou shouldest enter into covenant

    with the LORD thy God, and into His

oath, which the LORD thy God maketh

    with thee this day: that He may establish

thee to day for a people unto Himself, and

    that He may be unto thee a God, as He 

hath said unto thee, and as He hath sworn

     unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac,

and to Jacob.

                    Deuteronomy 29:12-13

Come, come quietly to God and worship Him

Richard L. Crumb

Here Is Real Emotion: Real Faith

And after eight days again His disciples were 

within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus,

 the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, 

and said, Peace be unto you. The saith He to 

Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, ad behold My hands, 

and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: 

and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas 

answered and said unto Him, 

My Lord and my God.

John 20:26-28 

     In the role of a Christian there are two things that must be understood: emotion, and faith. This is true for as human beings we all can admit that human beings are emotional beings and are beings that can have faith. Emotions and faith play a major part as to who we are and how we address life. God did not make us to be a robot and only doing what He desires to be done, and to live a non-emotional life for if that was true then we would not be able to appreciate all that this world has to offer, its beauty, as well as its struggles. God gave to us this capacity and we are to use it and only in the right way. Emotions, and faith can be so misused. 

     Emotions in the Church and in the lives of many Christians do not have Scriptural warrant. Let us look at how emotions are being misused. Music: oh, how I love music, and probably you do also and yet there is good and there is bad music. Not just the lyrics, but, how the music is performed. Cultural emphasis on Christian music can be seen in such as "Christian rock" where the musicians are so tatooed, up their arms, on their necks, wearing rings in noses, and eyebrows, and in other such bling just like non-Christian musicians. The effect of acting like the worldly musicians can be seen in the music, loud, rocky, making people to go euphorically wild. The women, the girls dress in the skimpy of clothing, revealing much of their bodies, as do the non-Christian "rock" women. This they say is to bring to the world the gospel and this is how to reach those lost sinners. Really? We see pastors and leaders dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, long unkempt hair, shirts that are usually reserved for hikes, or going to the park. We see pastors leaning on the pulpit or such devices as though by this non-assuming position they can reach more people with the gospel. Really? Celebrities think, even believe that they can do just about anything and get away with it because, they are celebrities. The were tuxedos with tennis shoes, just to show some independence. Celebrities women wear just about nothing, bikinis that are two small pieces of colored cloth, more as underwear used for swimwear. Dresses revealing so much flesh, then they wonder why men stare at them and even show so disdain, even false disdain that a man would look at them as a possible sex tool. Is this not what they want. These people, both Christians who have become cultural and those who are not Christians are not so different; they want to arose emotion. 

     Is this not true? Christians should be raising the bar, the bar of respect, and of ethics, not lower the bar? There is such a thing as proper dress, proper emotion, proper faith, and a time for both respect type dress and for play time dress. An Authentic Christian will know and use the difference. Are you raising your children to know what it means to be respectful, to use good judgment when dressing, to be a citizen, an Authentic Christian? Think on this: even sport announces, even sport announcers at boxing matches were a suit and tie. When going to see the President would not the respectful and proper thing to do is to dress appropriately, to dress respectfully? Yes! 

     Cultural Christianity is such a Christianity that is not all that afar off from the world's culture, in fact, it is hard to tell the difference. Maybe it is because it is not different, only, as the old saying goes: Do you know the difference between and drunk and an alcoholic? Yes! Us drunks do not have to go to meetings! The difference from a cultural Christian is that they go to meetings, Church, whereby those other cultural people do not feel the need to go to Church. Why should they? 

     I am not laying down rules, or to create rules to control emotion. What I am saying is that there is no Scriptural warrant for much of the emotion, this euphoric display of emotion that many Churches promote. I am not advocating to put away, to destroy emotion. To do that I am advocating doing away with humanity. 

    Thomas displayed true emotion. Thomas had a hard time believing that Jesus actually rose from the grave. When Jesus came to him and asked him to put his hand on the nail holes and into the side where the spear struck him, Thomas cried out: My Lord and my God. What a display of true emotion. When you come to the place where Jesus is real to you, not just a story in a book, but real to you, when you actually come to believe that He is the Messiah, the Savior who came to save the world of its sin, and to apply that sin to you, to give to you eternal life: what more can there be to give to you true emotion? You, if you believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ will live eternally. Not because you have done something, other than to believe upon Him, you are give this free gift of faith, a faith that leads to true emotion, not some false euphoric display of emotion. No, we are not to be stoic, to put emotions to death, we are to be real humans, to be real Authentic Christians who know that that are saved, that you have eternal life, that God loves you enough to come to earth to die to pay your debt so that you can have eternal life as He intended for mankind. This is emotional! This may, and maybe should bring tears to your eyes: God died for you! Will you accept Him? Will you deny yourself to no longer be a cultural Christian, to use emotions as they should be used? Will you present to the world what it means to be an Authentic Christian and raise the bar of respect, of proper virtue, to be what God wants you to be: AN AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN!

The LORD God is my strength,

    and He will make my feet 

like hinds feet, and He will make

    me to walk upon mine high places.

                      Habakkuk 3:19

Be an Authentic Christian

Richard L. Crumb