Be My Center – An Exercise In Emotions

JESUS – Be my center, be my source, be my light - JESUS

Galatians 5:16-24

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

“As life is organized around the Spirit, we will also be positively prompted by these qualities (Gal 5:18). These promptings should be followed. As they are followed they will produce wonderfully positive emotions and inner abilities in the believer’s life, as indicated by the accompanying vocabulary connected with the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control …” (Gal 5:22–23).

Our emotions carry great weight in our bodies and God desires to control them by learning and living out His Word! When He is our ‘center’ every emotion is filtered through Him.

As we discussed last week; emotions originate in the brain. It is interesting that the ‘command center’ for emotions is in the ‘center’ of the brain and God desires to be the ‘center’ of us!

If we are daily living out His Word then He IS the center and we are covered from the INSIDE OUT! We are not waiting around to react to any emotion that is sent to our brain for response – instead we are prepared and ready by receiving the Spirit and obeying Him! We are filling ourselves with the positive responses that are found when we are obedient to Christ!

Emotions start in the brain and are felt by the entire body. They play out across your face as your body reacts to the emotion. Examples are:

Fear  Joy  Love  Hate  Anger  Worry

Emotions authenticate (prove to be genuine) our understanding of the Truth and how we respond to that shows us how much of the Holy Spirit we are utilizing! Every believer has the same ability…we have to USE the gift we are given by God!

To ‘authenticate’ the Truth means – we might have something happen to us and we react the right way or think the right thought and we KNOW that the Holy Spirit is with us. We are listening to that still small voice within and our emotions are under Holy Spirit control!

God desires to be our CENTER. This means that every response that is perceived by our eyes, our ears, our body would be filtered through the Holy Spirit.

According to Galatians 5:22-23 the Spirit guides us from within by love, joy, peace, etc.

The flesh guides us from outside by issues in the world according to Galatians 5:19-21.

The Spirit is peace and assurance and when those qualities are guided by Him from the inside out – we wait for the guidance out of the fruit of the Spirit and find we can handle whatever the issue is.

Four ways to replace fleshly emotions with the Fruit of the Spirit:

©      Recognize that God desires to manage us through the Holy Spirit! (Galatians 5:16-24)

©      Recognize that the Holy Spirit desires to control our emotions – from within – teaching from inside out how to control our emotions (Romans 8:1-6)

©      No matter what the stimulus is – we must in response set our mind on God. (Colossians 3:1-13)

©      Recognize that the Holy Spirit desires to control us for our own good. (Philippians 4:8-9) so that we can walk and think in peace.

These four principles are only effective if we are willing - giving over to a LIVE relationship with Jesus and we are asking Him to fill us with the Fruit of the Spirit. It is a choice in life and we make it every day.

Emotions HAVE to be dealt with. They are a part of us that God created in each person. Bringing our emotions into submission to God is rewarding – not only to us but to our CREATOR who sees His work living out what JESUS died for! It brings Him glory.

Spend time this week working through these exercises and recognizing what stimulus brings out which emotion. Are they Fruit of the Spirit or workings in the flesh?

Examine yourself and discover if JESUS is YOUR CENTER!