So the older I get, the more I've realized that I allow my emotions to control EVERYTHING! If I feel sad, my actions are sad. If I feel happy, my actions are happy. Sometimes I am completely irrational and just plain out of control because of my emotions.
Now, God gave us emotions for a reason. I'm not saying they are bad. In fact, they are a blessing. Emotions allow me to rejoice, to experience the "feeling" of love (which is only part of love by the way), to feel sad when I need to feel sad, to feel sad when my brother or sister in Christ is broken and hurting and needs me to hurt with them, to laugh out loud with a big smile because I am so happy inside, and so on and so on.
My emotions truly are a blessing from the Father. In fact, He tells us in Proverbs that He is keeping our very own tear bottle for each of us! However, there is a bad side to these crazy things called emotions. The bad side comes in when I begin to allow these emotions to control me. When my sad day drives me into depression just because I can't seem to shake it off. Sometimes my emotions cause me to act rude, mean, and just plain ugly toward people. When I let my emotions control me, I become like a human rollercoaster. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes I am mad - up and down, up and down. So the other day I was reading Colossians 2:9-10...
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
This verse tells us that Christ is fully God, therefore God being fully Christ (confusing I know, hang with me). It also tells us that we have been given the FULLNESS of Christ - not just a little, not just some...no ALL, fullness, one hundred percent filled with Him.
Okay, the next part says that He (Christ) is the head over EVERY POWER AND AUTHORITY. Does this mean that we have power through Christ? YES! Complete power through Christ - we have power through Christ over Satan, evil powers, and evil authorities. But check that last part again...Christ, who is head over every power. Sometimes, my emotions get so out of hand that they tend to have power over me. They force me to act a certain way, or believe a certain thing about myself.
For instance, I am a sinner inherently, therefore I am going to sin (even though I hate it). Sometimes when I sin, my emotions go crazy and i feel all this guilt, sadness, and condemnation even after I go to the Father and ask forgiveness. Because of my emotions, I began to go crazy and start believing that Jesus doesn't love me anymore or isn't happy with me anymore because I screwed up. I know that's not true because of 1John 1:9!
Okay, so what am I saying in all of this? I am saying that emotions are a good thing, a blessing in fact. But when they become an EVIL power in my life and begin controlling my actions, moods, and motives, I've got a problem. I must realize that through the name of Jesus I have power over my controlling emotions of sadness, insecurity, anger, hatred, love, happiness, and EVERY OTHER EMOTION YOU CAN THINK OF!
God loves you. He has blessed us with emotions - use them wisely!