The
Bible urges us to share strong feelings (emotions) with our Christian brothers
and sisters.
One
of many examples: Phil. 2:1-3
Therefore if you
have any encouragement from being united
with Christ, if any comfort from his love,
if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded,
having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do
nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not
looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Strong
feelings of love, tenderness, and compassion (compassion means “feeling
together”) involve physical and chemical reactions in our (dare I use the word)
bodies.
Having
recently begun to attend a Pentecostal church, I am learning that emotions
combined with spiritual and physical phenomena can be confusing, exhilarating, and
nearly overwhelming.
Satan
has tried to exploit my confusion to convince me that my feelings of affection, joy, and
connection are or could become sinful. This fear pushes me away from my
brothers and sisters.
But
scripture pushes me toward love and promises that God will strengthen my heart to make me able
to practice pure and holy love.
Ephesians
3:15-19
I pray that out of
his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your
inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I
pray that you , being rooted and established in love, may have power,
together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high
and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love
that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all
the fullness of God.
I
Thessalonians 3:12,13
May the Lord
make your love increase and overflow for each
other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your
hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in
the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy
ones.
I
Thessalonians 5:24,25
May God himself,
the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May
your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
I
refuse to allow Satan to make my relationships with my Christian brothers and
sisters anything but holy.
