The church has become like the world, yet the world still wants what the church use to provide; God’s power to touch lives and transform hearts. I keep asking myself, “where is the power of God in Churches today?” I would say one of the biggest reasons for the lack of the presence of the Spirit of God in churches today is due to the lack of restraint of our emotions. My friend our emotions are out of control and if not held in check by ourselves (not God’s responsibility) they will move us out of God faster than sin. When I was a child I would see the power of God suddenly fall unsolicited. The Spirit of God would drop and people would be healed (without the laying on of hands) others would run with great abandonment and shame to the alter repenting, but where is this power today? It is not present, why? Because the people in most churches have failed to pay the price, they have failed to live a godly life (I include myself here at times) to have the presence of God manifest itself in our midst, they kept to rituals and customs in church, and they have failed to keep their emotions in line with what God expects. All throughout the Bible there were conditions the people had to meet to be able to meet with God, but today we bring bad attitudes, intentions, our selfishness, and wrong motives to church (in our thoughts and heart) we come to church dressed like we are going to a cook-out on the beach, we come with a predetermined time we plan to spend with God, and our time at church is always program driven. All of these areas are emotionally driven, we want what we want and we want it now. When I was child we did not have a piece of paper handed to us by the “door greeters” in church with the order of the service and announcements. Papers like these were given out at the ball games and venues of entertainment, not at church. But today: the who, what, when, and where of the church is the first thing you learn about. Sadly this church bulletin is nothing more than an old marketing ploy. Marketing experts have learned (and so have church leaders) people like to have something in their hand something they can read and take home with them, just go to the doctor’s office or shopping. Why take the Spirit of God home with you when you can take a piece of paper? Paper is cheap, but having the Holy Spirit in our midst will cost us something. All of this stuff feeds our emotions and is a substitute for what God wants to see in our lives. Our emotions are tied to our living and if we allow our emotions to rule our living our living will be very difficult and far outside of God. Here are a few areas I would like for us to look at in this article that if not careful our emotions will control all we do in and out of God.
Our spiritual behavior in and out of church is tied to our emotions. In a recent Wednesday night service (which was the second to the last nightly service to a Bible conference) we were praying corporately, then suddenly the prayer dropped off, and a lady began speaking in tongues everyone got still after all the church had been asking God to speak to them all week. I got a little excited it has been some time since I have heard tongues (not heavenly language or an unknown tongue) and then an interpretation (according to the gifts given in 1 Corinthians 12:10) God was going to speak to His people tonight, but before the lady finished an usher came down the aisle and sat the lady down in her seat. I could not believe it what they asked God for (for Him to speak to them) they turned away. Our emotions will change our behavior. Things that should not cause fear (dread or a feeling of doom) into our lives will control our senses and fill our heart with needless confusion and strife. Even the things of God will be distorted and even displaced by our emotions for the good or bad. Our sense of perception will be skewed to the point even our reality to the operating of the Holy Spirit will be distorted. We find this misapplication of the move of the Holy Spirit operating in most Pentecostal churches, especially in America, when it comes to speaking in tongues. Paul admonished the Church at Corinth, “Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. 2For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. 3But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. 4He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church.” (1 Corinthians 14:1-4) The words “gifts,”“him,” and “unknown” were added during the 1611 translation. Now this does not make these verses wrong, but it does add to “mysteries” that drives this misapplication of truth. Now I will be honest how this all happens is a mystery to me. I do agree with God speaking to us though some tongue and with the understanding from God through an interpretation in a language we know. There must be an interpretation or it is not of God. Make no mistake my friend there are counterfeit spirits in many churches today that duplicate this communication and many people who just out right fake it, be not deceived. Later on in Chapter 14 Paul corrects the Church at Corinth by saying, “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” (1 Corinthians 14:19) This is consistent with what happened in the Book of Acts, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:4), please notice no “unknown tongue” in Acts. And of course the people knew what the disciples were saying, “And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? 8And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” (Acts 2:7-8) We must not allow our emotions to carry us away into presumption and out of God. We must reject the draw of hyper-spiritualism and apply God’s divine principles correctly if we are going to receive from them.
Our tongue is tied to our emotions. What can I say that we do not already know? Our tongue is the most destructive force in our lives. Look at the words James uses to define the power of the tongue, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! 6And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. 7For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: 8But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” (James 3:5-8) Our tongue is keen as an adder’s bite to take life, yet it also as powerful as birth to give life. The tongue has been given power by God to either bless or curse us and we are the ones who choose between the blessing and the curses for ourselves and others. And again it is our emotions that are in the driver’s seat. Our emotions drive our thoughts (which drives our heart condition) and out of our mouth speaks our heart. We must take heed to our tongue and keep it in total subjection if God will be able to bring us to the end and purpose He has planned for us. I cannot stress this point enough. A soft word turns away wrath, speaks of a tongue under control. Silence is the sound of God’s man in the school of spiritual growth and development, but a froward tongue is the way of haughtiness, contempt, and destruction.
Our words (especially singing) are tied to our emotions. If you are moved by man’s word’s God’s words will not move you. Take heed my friend, man’s words are kindled and spread with emotions that move our heart and will move us far away from God’s heart and will. Deception is spread by arrogant and presumptive words. Just watch Christian TV (like TBN) and watch the manipulation. Church leaderships have watched and learned the lessons of the propagandist and arrange services with music, lights, flags and banners to stir up the emotions of the people. The sadness to all of this is the people are missing out on a real move of God. Churches today have substituted God’s Spirit for a popular well written contemporary song. You can go from one church to the next, but in all of these churches they sing the same contemporary songs, why? What happened to the hymns? Traditional songs most if not all of them have been written out of an internal, intense dealing of God; like any one of Fanny Crosby’s 5,000 hymns or Horatio Stafford’s unforgettable song “It Is Well with My Soul,” were written out of personal loss, recognizing their great need for God, and a submission for an inward strengthening by God. Can we adopt the heart of the song as it was given by God to the writer? No of course not. Because we cannot share in the loss or the dealing of God like the writer, thus we have no spiritual part in it. Our singing is just an emotional ascent with the tune that tickles our emotions and the sad part is we think it is God moving on us when in fact it is not God moving on us, but our emotions leading us up and away from God. God is found down in a low place. God does not take us up like our emotions do oh no God takes us down in the depths of ourselves so we can see who we are as compared to who He is. Our emotions are subtle and mask our need to go down in ourselves, they want to lift us up in our self-seeking and selfishness, they want to be blessed, they want to be satisfied, they cry out “come fill me, come bless me” they say “I want to live and be happy” well God does not want us to live He wants us to die, because He knows if we can die to our self He will be able to live through us. Jesus taught, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 25He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 26If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” (John 12:24-26) You know I find it amazing the Bible only records Jesus singing one time after the Passover meal as He was heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane as a part of the Jewish custom to sing hymns (old Jewish chants) as they departed the feast. If singing is so important in a church service (where some churches spend 30 – 90 minutes) why did not Jesus tell us to do it? Paul knew the truth. In Ephesians Paul shows us the correct direction and location of music as it relates to Christians, “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. 18And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;” (Ephesians 5:17-19) I have found churches that sing a lot in their service are usually led by emotional people and there is not much spiritual growth and development in their lives or the church. David is often given credit for all of the singing in churches services as in the Palms he wrote because of God’s dealings and judgments in his heart, but if you closely look at David’s life you will find David was a very emotional man and his emotions got him into trouble with God and man time and time again.
Sometimes I have a test of faith as I mature in God. He does not ask me to understand Him, but He understands me perfectly. I do not always understand Him, but I love Him anyway. Did you know the Lord has a right to leave us without a touch of His presence for weeks or months at a time? The further we go on in God, the less He is going to honor our field of emotions. We have to learn to walk with the Lord without His conscious presence, which at times is very terrifying. Less and less are we dependent on our devotional patterns that served for our living. How is faith going to develop in us if God is going to humor us along all the time? In those difficult places we will never be able to synchronize the state in which we are moving with our fluctuating emotions. We must control our emotions (our responsibility not God’s) as we allow our emotions to run parallel with our experiences in God
