Today's Topic: Manage Your Feelings!

Today, I want to share with you a very important topic: Managing your feelings!

There's a story about a witch who told a man going into a city that he had to announce a message: someone in the city would die of a plague! The man asked the witch, Surely it's just one person? The witch said, Definitely just one! As a result, more than 300 people died the next day! The man returned to the city gate and asked the witch, Didn't you say only one person would die? How did more than 300 die? The witch said, The others were scared to death!

We must know how unreliable our feelings are. When we hear news, because we are uncertain, we start to worry. Hearing a little something, our hearts start to murmur, Could that one person be me? Fear sets in. The more we think about it, the more it seems like it's us. Yesterday, I had a stomachache, it must be me. Another thinks, Yesterday, I felt a bit restless, it must be me. Still others, after twisting an ankle while walking, think, I've been quite unlucky lately, it must be me. The more they think, the more real it feels, and the symptoms become more severe and terrifying, making it even harder to escape. The result is that over 300 people were scared to death! Some say that most people who get cancer are scared to death. That's not necessarily true, but we find that fear does play a significant role! Recently, in serving cancer patients, I've found that helping them not focus on the cancer and concentrate on doing things is of great help!

Not only is this true for feelings related to illness, but it is also true for other feelings. Many murderers regret their actions after killing someone. In a moment, they couldn't control their inner anger, and they killed someone, with unimaginable consequences. They regret it deeply. Many who have had this experience have concluded that impulse is the devil! Do you know how many innocent people our feelings have harmed?

It is said that many men and women cheat because their feelings went awry for a moment and were not managed well, resulting in a mistake that lasts a lifetime! Feelings are very unreliable. If a man tells you that he has feelings for you, don't believe him. One day, he will have feelings for another woman, and then you'll be in trouble! I think responsibility is more important! We live not by feelings, but by the words that come from the mouth of God, living by keeping and following God's word! That is responsibility, that is a choice, not following feelings, but following God's word!

A few days ago, a sister who had just come to faith loved reading the Bible and praying very much! Suddenly, she started to feel like she didn't love reading the Bible or praying anymore. So fast, just suddenly! As a result, I gave her a scolding. When have we Christians ever seen feelings in the Bible? Never! We don't live by feelings, we live by the word of God! Why is the road to the Kingdom of Heaven narrow? Because so many people live by feelings!

There is a poem to prove it: Have you all heard the song Follow Your Feelings? The lyrics go like this:

Follow your feelings, hold tight to the hand of your dreams, your steps get lighter and lighter, more and more joyful.

Give full play to your own smile, love will leave me anywhere.

Follow your feelings, hold tight to the hand of your dreams, the blue sky gets closer and closer, more and more gentle.

The mood is as free as the wind, suddenly discovering a completely different me.

Follow your feelings, let it take me, hope is not far away, waiting for me.

Follow your feelings, let it take me, the things I dream of will be there!

Those who follow their feelings end up in One Night In Beijing!

Not only adults are like this, but children who follow their own feelings and preferences will eventually be corrupted! This is because people do not understand the way of life and sow according to the feelings of the flesh, reaping corruption. When a person's own life is corrupted, they don't even know how it was corrupted! This is human foolishness!

Having said this, we should all know that following feelings is not the way! Managing our feelings is the key! Children, manage the feeling of wanting to play and develop good study habits, and they will be good children. Adults, manage their feelings, manage their time, finances, and work, and they will live better than those who do not manage their feelings!

Today, I am sharing with you Managing Our Feelings.

Scripture: Genesis 4:3-15

Gen 4:3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. Gen 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: Gen 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Gen 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. Gen 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? Gen 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Gen 4:11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; Gen 4:12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. Gen 4:13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Gen 4:14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. Gen 4:15 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

The First Person Controlled by Feelings – Cain

Last time, I shared about Cain's father. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and began the hard road of life. It was really hard, sweating every day just to make a living. In the blink of an eye, decades passed, and Adam and Eve had two children: Cain and Abel. One tilled the ground, and the other herded sheep. They also had to sweat to make a living! It was hard! The feeling was really not good! Especially for the one tilling the ground. In fact, the shepherd could just take the sheep to a place with grass and sit there watching them. The one tilling the ground couldn't do that. Once in the field, there was no rest all day long: weeding, fertilizing, and dealing with bugs. In fact, it is the same today. Some of our jobs are strenuous, and some are not. Those who have extremely strenuous jobs have to come to church on Sundays, and they have a bit of resistance in their hearts. I think Cain was also like this. When it came time to grow up and offer sacrifices to God, he felt very unhappy. He just grabbed a handful and offered it to God. In fact, Cain was not unhappy just when offering sacrifices; he had been unhappy for a long time! As a result, his sacrifice was not accepted! He became even more unhappy! Small unhappiness, if not dealt with and managed, will grow into big unhappiness. Big unhappiness, if not dealt with and managed, and still murmured in the heart, It's all because of my brother Abel! Without him, I wouldn't be like this!

This is the portrayal of many foolish people. You are unhappy and not joyful; instead of finding problems within yourself, you blame others. In fact, Cain's unhappiness had nothing to do with Abel! It was a problem within himself. But Cain didn't think so. The more he looked at his brother, the more unhappy he became! From big unhappiness, it turned into great anger! Feelings had already turned into emotions! You see, a wrong logical system leads to people being very tired! This is still the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil! You can suppress your emotions and feelings, but if you don't change your logical system, you can't suppress them! That's why when the Lord Jesus began to preach, he said, The Kingdom of Heaven is near, you should all repent! What is repentance? It's changing the logical system within yourself. Our problem is not an external problem; it is a problem within us! Don't see the speck in your brother's eye and not notice the log in your own eye!

At this time, God warned him, Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

God is telling Cain that the problem is yourself! You are angry now because you are not doing well; it's not because of the comparison with Abel. Even without the comparison, it is still not good! Your anger now has already begun to open the door for the devil; you must be careful! The devil will stick to you and desire you unless you can subdue it!

Brothers and sisters, what is God saying? Cain, you must manage your feelings! Otherwise, your feelings will open the door for the devil. Once you open the door for the devil, you will live even more miserably! God warned Cain that you must overcome it! As a result, not only did he not overcome it, but Cain killed his brother!

Look at how hateful sin is in people! It causes us to have strong negative emotions; it traps us in our own feelings of being right, and then it drives us to commit greater sins. As a result, we have even worse feelings, we become even more painful, and then we blame others even more. Now, not only does Cain have to work harder to make a living, but he also lives with deep inner pain. At this point, Cain already had paranoid schizophrenia! People who have had mental illness know how painful it is. Cain lived in a deeper curse!

What's the problem? Just a little unhappiness in management!

Brothers and sisters, if there is a slight discomfort between us, let us deal with it together! Do not let it brew there! Brewing bitterness, bitterness begins to take root, and once rooted, it will corrupt you, and not only that, but also defile everyone! Hebrews 12:14-15: Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

See, we must pursue peace and holiness! When someone knows God and begins to lose God's grace, a root of bitterness will grow! Disrupting us! Causing us all to be defiled! Be careful.

Later, Cain wandered on the earth and became a wanderer! At that time, there was no one on earth, but he actually said that encountering people would kill him! A mental case! What a deep curse, what a painful feeling!

In my last sermon, I mentioned the issue of discerning good and evil. That is the root of all our problems in the world. The beginning of the sinful world began with eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! In my last sermon, I mentioned a key concept: feeling! Whether we live well or badly all depends on how we feel. What kind of feeling, what kind of life!

The church is a study of how to live well in theory. You can try it out; follow us and believe in the Lord, invest a little bit for half a year, and experience it. Many people suffer their whole lives because they do not know how to live. Some people are joyful all their lives because they have figured out how to live. In fact, joyful people do not necessarily have more possessions than those who suffer, but if they have more joy than others in their lives, that is enough!

Pain is a feeling, joy is also a feeling, entanglement, depression, confusion, uncertainty, emptiness, numbness, hatred, jealousy, anger, are all bad feelings. Peace, joy, tranquility, stability, contentment, fulfillment, clarity, are good feelings. Those who obtain these, obtain a wonderful life!

Start with managing our feelings! If you cannot manage it, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness; the Holy Spirit will pray for us within us, and He who searches the hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will! What a great grace!

With the Lord Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we have good feelings within us, and we can resist the bad feelings that come from the devil! Truly grace! This grace was bought by the Lord Jesus Christ with His blood and sacrifice on the cross! Although it is free, it is priceless! Don't take this grace for granted! Cain could not overcome the devil on his own. Neither can we! We actually have no other way to go but to rely on the Lord for life, rely on the Word of God, and deal with the devil with faith, and manage the feelings within us!

Tell me the path to take that does not slide towards the line of death. How wide and long, how deep and high is Your love, my heart exclaims! With the Lord, what more do I need? My heart is connected to the Lord's heart; I have vowed to follow the Lord and never change!

The Relationship Between Feelings and the Devil

Cain's experience reveals a truth! That is, our feelings are closely related to the devil! Cain never saw a ghost until he died, but the ghost could see him! Not only watching him, but also harassing him to death. All the feelings inside Cain came from the devil. The essence of life lies in the feelings within us! The deeper the sin, the more it attracts the devil, and the more painful the feelings become. When the devil nests within a person, that person becomes a house where the devil dwells. That is an extremely painful feeling.

The most wonderful thing inside a person is feeling! Feelings are often out of control. So studying how to manage feelings is very important! I will tell you the most important spiritual principle: When what spirit dwells on us, we have what feeling. Everyone, remember my words!

When I am ministering to cancer patients, you know that the pain of cancer is very painful! Many people think that if cancer grows there, it will definitely hurt. But this is not the truth. Later I discovered that pain is a spirit. Wherever the spirit of pain dwells, it will hurt! And the spirit of pain is very easy to drive away. When praying for a cancer patient, when she is in great pain, the pain will disappear with prayer. Recently, there was a cancer patient from Nanyang whose daughter sent me a message saying that her father has not needed to take painkillers for the past few days. With prayer, the pain subsided! The cancer is still growing there, but the sensation of pain has disappeared!

There was a student who was very entangled. I enlightened her and prayed for her, and the entanglement disappeared. She then asked me why she had used various methods to resolve the entanglement in her heart for a month without much effect, but the pastor's prayer worked! I think it's very interesting; she experienced such a thing, but she still doesn't know that it is a spirit. What can people use to resist evil spirits? Besides the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, there is no effective way!

Brothers and sisters, when we feel wrong, we must know that it is a spirit! Feeling entangled is the spirit of entanglement! Pain is the spirit of bitterness! Depression is the spirit of depression! Pain is the spirit of pain!

We must start managing from small feelings. Why? Because your feelings will attract spirits. When you are angry, you will attract the spirit of anger. The Bible says not to let the sun go down on your anger. If you let the sun go down on your anger, the spirit of anger will come in. Fear will attract the spirit of fear. And the spirit of fear will bring the spirit of witchcraft. Guilt will attract the spirit of accusation. Insecurity will attract the spirit of control and the spirit of witchcraft. Depression will bring the spirit of depression. Lust will bring the spirit of lust and the spirit of fornication. There was once a girl who had a crush on a boy. The feelings inside were so strong that they were uncontrollable. As a result, she went to a master to perform magic, and ended up in a mental hospital. How pitiful!

So the Bible says to guard our hearts above all else!

How do we manage our feelings? Start with our thoughts!

The Relationship Between Feelings and Our Thoughts

Event → Our Logic System → Feelings

Example:

8. Cannot find a job -> Don't know when I can find it -> Worry

9. Cannot eat -> I cannot eat, how can I live -> Afraid of getting sick, afraid of dying

10. Sacrifice is not accepted -> It's all because of Abel -> Anger, Rage

Core Interest – Is it loving the Lord and serving the Lord? The pastor's request, unhappiness, conflicts with your core interests. Affects your little life.

What is our core interest? It is the kingdom of God! Our core interest is that we serve the Lord!

What we care about and what we don't care about – Thinking of the incomparable, eternal glory, the momentary, light affliction is not worth mentioning!

A Model for Managing One's Feelings

Sold by his brothers – That was God preparing me to come here first, for the salvation of the family

Missing his brother, missing his father – For the glory to come, this is a momentary, light affliction

Joseph – Wept loudly as he embraced his brother

Joseph – Wept loudly as he embraced his father

Faith is Key!

Worry, anxiety – Worry about what, be anxious about what, there is God!

Concern, fear – Be concerned about what, be afraid of what, there is God!

There are still many among us, especially sisters, who like to live by their feelings! That is a very dangerous thing! Because the Bible never tells us to live by our feelings. One sister told me, Pastor, I can't possibly date someone I have no feelings for! I retorted, What if you have a lot of feelings, but they gradually disappear day by day?

The word feeling is never mentioned in the Bible. But Christians often use the word feeling. This is the most serious distortion of the Bible! The Bible never tells us to live by our feelings. Adam and Eve lived by their feelings, and were immediately deceived by the devil, and it was all over!

The key is not feeling, but faith!

Looking for scriptures, cannot find scriptures related to feeling.

What is love? It's not a feeling, it's a responsibility.

Summary: A Spiritually Mature Person Is Someone Who Can Manage Their Feelings

Sense of Responsibility

Not Living by Feelings

Living by Responsibility

Resisting Feelings

– We live by the Word of God!

A Christian's wonderful life is full of many exciting feelings. The most exciting feeling is watching things about to fail, and then coming back to life.

2 Corinthians 4:7: But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:8: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 2 Corinthians 4:9: persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:10: We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 2 Corinthians 4:11: For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.