1 John 3:1-3 · 1 John 2:28 · Psalm 51 — Lies
Feelings Are Not Facts
Emotions are gifts from God but are not reliable guides to truth. Satan uses distorted feelings about ourselves to convince us we are either worthless or invincible, but God's declaration that we are his children remains true regardless of what we feel.
Introduction
Emotions are one of many gifts that God gives us. Emotions are neither good nor bad. It is the behaviors that accompany the emotions that determine their moral position. Most of us learn how to control our emotions; however, for many emotions become the means to determine actions. We have no issue with a person expressing their exuberance about a job promotion or a task well done, but we would have a problem with the newly promoted worker going to a fellow employee and bragging about the promotion making the other worker feel less. We have no problem with someone expressing their anger as long as another person isn’t harmed in the process.
Emotions and thoughts are a part of life. One of our dilemmas is deciding how much to trust our emotions. Roger Ebert said, “Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.” Does that sound like the truth? Have we all had the experience where our emotions were not valid? Maybe we misunderstood someone and we got our feelings hurt and we thought that it was intentional when we learned later that it wasn’t. Try this one from Oscar Wilde, “The advantage of our emotions is that they lead us astray.” One might think that Mr. Wilde was speaking against following your emotions, but quite the opposite. He is endorsing the emotions because they overcome such silly notions as good or evil.
We know that emotions help us experience life, but they are not always reliable. Satan wants us to believe that not only are they reliable but if we experience them they must be accurate and truthful. We will examine this lie—feelings are facts—and see what God has to say.
The Lie
Satan wants us to believe that feelings are accurate and reliable. He also wants us to believe the opposite: that only rational thought is accurate and reliable. A person who leans primarily on emotions will be considered wishy-washy at best. The person who leans primarily on rational thought will be considered cold and indifferent. We are a combination of both emotions and rational thought. Both emotions and rational thought lead us to experience the world more deeply. Art, music, and paintings all come from the realm of emotions and life is better because of it. Philosophy, the sciences, and mathematics come from the realm of rational thought and life is better because of it. It is the mixing of the two that brings fullness of beauty to life and it makes life extremely complex.
It is in this complexity that Satan speaks. In Western culture we speak of the head and the heart as if they are two different things. But they really aren’t. This is part of Satan’s lies. Isolate one and your life is only half as beautiful. Satan tries to convince you that one or the other is better. I watch a movie with both head and heart. If it is a comedy, then I laugh because it speaks to my heart, but the funny lines also make me think because humor requires both. If I watch a ball game, both head and heart are involved. I can think strategically about what I see but then find great excitement when my team does well.
Relationship with someone requires both head and heart. Initially relationships are almost all heart and what we know is that one has to force rational thinking to be present. We describe the early part of romantic relationships as infatuation because the heart rules. But the longer one dates, the more rational thought is needed to discern the traits and values that we are willing to live with. Ask anyone who has been married more than two years and they know that both head and heart are important to a relationship.
There is a part of this that I want to focus on. It is where Satan does his most damage and it is personal. Everyone has feelings about themselves. And when those feelings become so skewed toward making us doubt ourselves, feel bad about ourselves, see ourselves as worthless or unlovable, then Satan’s lies have won. And we begin to believe that our feelings about ourselves are facts. It can work the other way too. We can feel so good about ourselves that we think we are invincible or even without equal. This leads to pride and arrogance and our hearts tell us this is true because we feel it so deeply about ourselves. In this case, Satan convinces us that we are either worthless or we are God’s gift to humanity. Either way his lies convict us and we think inaccurately.
Think of five words that describe you. Don’t call them out. Just think. Are the words mostly negative or positive? How quickly you came up with the words probably says more about how ingrained these lies may be than what the words are. Sometimes we can believe the feelings we have about ourselves—especially the negative ones—instead of listening to God.
The Truth
One of the beauties of scripture is that God wants us to know both sides. There are times that the Bible reports what happens without comment. There are other times that the Bible tells us the emotions. We know that Jesus at Gethsemane was so profoundly and emotionally distraught that he thought he was going to die before the cross. We know from Psalm 51 the depth of David’s repentance and how he felt about himself, but the psalm also speaks about the release from sin and God’s healing and gracious hand.
You are what God says you are whether you feel it, believe it, or act upon it. God never lies. He speaks to our heart and our head. The creator of our emotions not only gives permission for our emotions to be expressed but reminds us of the reality that is beyond emotions. Look at our text. What does John say we are according to 3:1? Children of God. What if I don’t feel it? Does it change the truth? What if I don’t believe it? While it doesn’t change the truth, your lack of trusting God may result in a diminished life. What if I don’t act upon it? Then you really are missing out. What does John say in 2:28 about what God wants for us when Jesus returns? Confident and unashamed. Emotions are powerful. So powerful that sometimes they can feel like the truth is wrong. But when emotions give us permission to ignore God’s truth, then the emotions are being driven by Satan’s lies.
To put it another way: if how well we feel about ourselves is based on how well we do, then Satan has caught us in his trap. We are now at the point of trying to be good, better, and best and that is a terrible trap to live in. God declares you to be his children. If that is true, then live with joy and praise in response to that truth rather than trying to prove anything. Live as God’s children. Don’t live trying to prove you are worthy to be God’s child. What God says about you is true even if you don’t feel it. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote: “Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.” You are God’s child. With your realization that you are a sinner and that Jesus is the answer to your sin problem, you responded. And with your baptism God declares that you are his child—forgiven, holy, an inheritor of his blessings, and one who will be made into the image of Jesus. This is true. Satan will do all he can to convince you that you are worthless, unlovable, and that you are a lost cause. Believe what God says.
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