Faith Or Feelings

 

I hear this said among God’s people a lot, “I just don’t feel that is what I want to do.” Many people live based on their feelings & try to relate to God based on feelings. That is not what God calls us to do. God calls us to relate to Him based on faith, not feelings.

 

In 1 John 3:19-20 John writes, “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before Him, for whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart and He knows everything.” John says that many times our feelings condemn us but God is greater than our feelings & we relate to Him & obey Him based on what we know God’s will is.

 

Jesus models how we live by faith & not feelings.

 

Luke 9:51 says, “When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus was always focused on not only doing what the Father wanted but also when the Father wanted Him to do it.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about doing God’s will God’s way in God’s timing.

 

John 11:7-10 says, “Then after He said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to Him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him’” Jesus knew that the religious leaders hated Him & wanted Him dead. But He knew that the Father’s will was for Him to go to Judea to raise Lazarus from the dead. He was going based on faith, not feelings.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about believing God & letting Him take you out of your comfort zone & trusting Him to lead you for your good & His glory.

 

We have several examples of people who followed their feelings & not faith.

 

Jonah running away from Nineveh & getting swallowed by a fish. When he did obey God, the people of Nineveh repented & God brought revival to Nineveh.

King Saul panicking when Samuel did not show up on his timetable & making the sacrifice himself which God expressly said that only a priest could do.

The people of Israel feeling like the people of the promised land being too strong to take the land after God had told them He was giving them the land.

Judas feeling that Jesus was not doing what the Messiah should be doing & betraying Jesus to the religious leaders.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that living based on feelings leads to harmful results.

 

We have a powerful picture of following Jesus based on faith in the life of Philip.

 

Philip led by the Holy Spirit goes to Samaria when forced to leave Jerusalem because of persecution. Then when God uses him to begin a spiritual awakening in Samaria, the Spirit leads him to a road in the middle of nowhere to wait for one man. The man was a powerful official in Ethiopia who surrendered his life to Jesus & changed the direction of a whole nation. God was able to use Philp because Philip obeyed God & was living on faith, not feelings.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that living based on faith leads to God doing awesome things in & through our lives.

 

The question is: Are you living based on faith or feelings?

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls,

Joe