June 14, 2019
“But don’t let the passion of your emotions lead you to sin! Don’t let anger control you or be fuel for revenge, not for even a day. Don’t give the slanderous accuser, the Devil, an opportunity to manipulate you!” – Ephesians 4:26-27 (The Passion Translation)
This may have stood out to me because I have been so emotional lately, but the Lord used it to encourage me to live by faith and not feelings. Emotions are powerful, but they do not have dominion over us. Our emotions can be like seeds. If we allow them to be planted in our hearts things will grow from them. If we allow anger to be planted, then bitterness and resentment can grow. If we allow unforgiveness to be planted, then hate, indifference, and disunity can grow. If we allow fear to be planted, then disbelief and hopelessness can grow. If we temper the passion of our emotions with the choice to love, then we fail to give the devil a foothold. Love is not an emotion, it is a choice. The feeling of love is not what sent Christ to the cross, the choice to love us is what did. We were filthy, dirty, enemies of God, but He chose to love us anyway. We are called to also choose to love.
The Bible tells us to love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). It says that faith, hope, and love remain and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13) It also says the two greatest commandments are to Love the Lord God with all our heart, our soul and our mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves. All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:37-40)
If we look at the essence of Paul’s words here, to me he is explaining how we are to live as the re-created men and women in Christ. It all boils down to love. It is the thing that everything he is talking about springs from. If we love God first and then we love our neighbor we are walking as Christ did. We are no longer first, He is and then they(our neighbors) are. Everything else in the chapter describes what it looks like to walk that out.
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