Tricky Emotions

Emotions are complicated enough when trying to distinguish them, let alone trying to prevent emotions from interfering with what we need to do or think about. 

 

Emotions can be both a great gift and a curse. We can feel a loved through an action or knowing that causes a good feeling to come over us or we can feel angry that causes or faces to get red or our minds to become fogged. 

We have to be mindful of our emotions because they can easily lead us atray when we try to stay in one direction and get side tracked by a circumstance that gets our emotions wound up and take us off our path in righteousness. 

Don’t forget that the enemy will always try to get us caught up in ourselves by placing random thoughts or people that either naturally cause us to get an automatic emotion to fire up or cause someone whom you’ve known and trusted to do or say something that “blindsides” you and causes a deep pain or frustration in us.

Don’t be fooled by your emotions, you should never lead by anger or jealousy or any other negative feeling. Likewise don’t be tricked into feeling good when you allow yourself to give into vices that you know are wrong, despite the fact that they cause good ‘feelings’ they can lead you down the opposite path that God has for you.

Love not Hate

What is lacking in today’s world is love.

Not just saying “I love you “to a significant other or saying “I love that song” to a friend, but love expressed towards others regardless if you know the person or genuinely feel that way. 

We have gone to long without letting the people around us know that we love them because God loves them. The world has perverted the idea of love to where it can only mean a sexual form of love or an meaningless word that we use to express a ‘like’ of something. “love” is a reoccurring word in our vocabulary as Americans, yet only a handful have the understanding of what love is let alone have experienced love.

One of the biggest reasons why many of our youth have chosen various sinful lifestyles is because they haven’t experienced love or a “positive” form of love, which is sad to have to verify what “type” of love someone has experienced.

Many women go through their whole lives searching for love from various men or vices. Men do the same, but they tend to get overshadowed by their infidelities. 

God doesn’t only love those of who believe in Him, but even those who don’t. We can’t go around pretending to be in a special secret club where only you and select others are allowed to experience God’s love and only show each other love and compassion; when we do this we end up being in a one-sided love relationship with Him, where we do not show love to all others and yet He shows love to world through miraculous healings, long awaited pregnancies, near accidents that saved people’s lives and so on….even simply sending someone to you just to give you a friendly smile or hug when you needed it. 

Let someone know that they are loved…

Let someone know that you love them, that they are not alone.

“That Gut Feeling”

“You shouldn’t go to that party tonight.”

Have you ever had that kind of experience?  When you are trying to decide where to go for the night and you come upon an invitation to a party in a nice part of town, but you get an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.

A lot of the people you see in movies who hesitate to do something or go somewhere but get talked into overriding that feeling only to end up dead or in a bad situation, yet many of us try to test this feeling and see if we are “just over thinking it” or being a “coward” and so on. 

Why is it that we try to test our “gut feelings” when it usually leans on the side of being in a safer situation??

I personally don’t believe our “gut feeling” is just our bodies on it’s own reacting to something, I believe it’s the Holy Spirit trying to warn us, even those who are saved or have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t mean He doesn’t love or care for you; He wants ALL of us to stay out of harm’s way whether it be a potential emotional problem or physical issue planning to approach. 

I have had MANY experiences with being in a position to go somewhere or do something while in High School that lead to me having an instantaneous feeling of uneasy, I acted on that feeling. In the end, it kept me from getting involved in a compromising situation and leading am unfulfilling lifestyle that a lot of my former friends are currently leading who didn’t act on those same warnings when situations arose.

I can’t say that everyone experiences the exact same type of physical feeling in their body, but I know that there are more people of are aware of these warnings and still go against them only to look back at the situation wishing that they didn’t ignore that feeling.

It’s up to you to heed the warnings….

Suffering In Silence: Guilt

Feeling guilty for not achieving what you know you could have achieved is a very common feeling that everyone experiences.

I believe that guilt in relation to finances is common area for almost everyone. Most commonly Christians struggle with the guilt of not paying off bills when they should have, not paying their tithes in a while, frivolous spending, gambling and so on.

That guilt pigeon-holds Christians and keeps them in a state of limbo where they can’t seem to prosper and yet not really get any lower. A lot of the times the guilt comes up when a spouse looses a job and can no longer afford to keep up the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to. In effort to keep the lifestyle they cut back on expenses and their tithes and or offerings ends up being one of them….sadly the church doesn’t let their congregations know that when you are faced with an attack on your finances by the enemy the last place where you want to skimp or exclude is your tithes and offerings.

When you cut off your tithes or reduce them, you can’t expect to get a hundredfold return on your giving, instead, as long as you are have been and still speak over your tithes and offerings, you are only going to get the ‘same measure added back to you’. Therefore this results in a longer season of lack and more guilt.

So now, you are feeling guilty for not paying tithes, bills and being able to maintain the lifestyle you had before and the lack seems to never end. Of course you haven’t told anyone else in your congregation or even your pastor! Because then even more guilt and now fear will come upon you because you’ll feel that the congregation will judge you and the pastor will be disappointed in you because you don’t tithe or your tithes are lower than had been in months…

There are many other emotions and hindrances that go along with financial lack, which doesn’t make the situation seem any better….

Want to get out of that season?!

*Do NOT stop tithing!

*Search for scriptures related to prosperity and finances.

*Pray and meditate the scriptures you have found (if you can’t find them ask people!)

*Ask for prayer!

*Bind the spirit of heaviness.

* Set an appointment to sit down with your pastor or a Christian counselor

*BE BLESSED!!!

Importance of Tithing

It wasn’t until shortly after becoming born again that I learned that first I need to become a tither.

In Genesis 14:20 , Melchizedek comes out to meet Abraham, as Abraham gives him a tithe of the spoils of his victory.

It took me a few days at first to understand how I am supposed to tithe…

Deuteronomy 14:22-29

^“22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.”

Your tithe is supposed to be one tenth of the amount you receive from your wages, unemployment, student aid, disability, social security and so on. The amount that you are working with is the amount of money you have after taxes, so if you have $300 after taxes you take one tenth of that *$300 divided by 10*, therefore you owe $30 in tithes to your local church. Assuming that you have a church that you go to that you see is doing what they are suppose to scripturally. 

The way I think of tithing, to prevent my mind form wanting to keep the tithe that I owe is to think of it as another mandatory tax…We don’t get to choose when we get taxed on items or services purchased, right? So goes the tithe we owe to our church. Those tithes are not our own according to the bible, that one tenth that we take out and give to our church already belongs to God, it is not ours to choose what to do with. By keeping “our” tithe, we are robbing God….

Malachi 3:8-10

⁸ “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

                 “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

 “In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

Make it an automatic thing, to immediately separate your tithe from your paycheck or whatever moneys you receive by any other means to live off of as soon as you get it, so as to not overspend or get use to have a certain amount in your banking account.

More to come……..

Suffering In Silence: Pride

Unfortunately, there are many Christians suffering in silence, whether it’s financial issues, emotional or physical problems. I have noticed that some Christians feel ashamed to go up for prayer or let someone know that they need food or money to get by until their next check.

Some Christians feel ashamed to say that they are being tormented or attacked by the enemy as it is happening; a lot of the time they share that they have been dealing with the enemy after the fact, when they have FINALLY reached the other side. Little do they know, they could have avoided multiple, painful, time consuming stumbles and obstacles if they had just humble themselves or let go in order for God to bless them through other people around them.

Many Christians feel that they have to be perfect or at least appear to be perfect to everyone else. That pressure to be or to look perfect usually puts them in a worse state. 

They are at a disadvantage when they try to come off as if everything is alright when there is an area in their life that is in jeopardy or that they are constantly coming up against a wall. We are all human, so naturally we have a little bit of pride that we pick up in life as a child, however just because we were born with it does mean it gives us a right to hold on to it. There are many things that we are born with that don’t have to remain with us, pride is one of them. Do not let pride keep you from reaching your breakthrough. 

Sometimes pride prevents all of us from crying out or to ask people for help…I know I have been there. Pride is the thing that we, in general, hold on to that we know deprives us from getting what we need or want, yet we protect diligently…..

To Be Continued…….