Doesn’t Seem Like it!

How many times have you heard this? “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas”? Or “It seems like it should be Friday”. I think the best one is “It feels like a hundred degrees outside”. The weatherman has even taken advantage of this, by telling us what it feels like rather than what the temperature really is. 

 

All one needs to do is to look to the calendar. If it reads that the day is Dec 25^th, we can be assured it is Christmas Day. If it reads today is Wednesday then no matter how much it may seem like Friday, it is still Wednesday. Look at the thermometer; this will give us the correct temperature, no matter what it may “feel” like.

 

It is evident that our minds have a tendency to play tricks on us. And for this reason we have calendars on our desks; we wear watches on our wrists; hang clocks on our walls, and have thermometers in and outside the house. The fact is; we don’t have the ability to determine the time, date or the temperature simply by our inclinations.

 

Neither can we discern spiritual things by our feelings. Yet so many today allow their mood swings to guide them as to what is of God and what is not? The consensus is; if something makes one to feel good during a “church” gathering or function, then it must surely be of the Lord. After all, if it wasn’t of God, we could never feel like this. If it “feels” like the Spirit, then it must be…right? To answer this, let us look to scripture: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel (God’s Word) is wise”. Proverbs 12:15. On the other side of the coin we find those who weren’t “lifted up” during the worship service, swearing the Lord wasn’t in it.

 

This is not to say that there are no emotional experiences while in the presence of our Lord and Mighty God.  We may very well and in most cases will indeed become emotional while in the presence of our Lord, but we must be very careful not to be confused by thinking that in every case our emotions are the Holy Spirit.

 

The Bible is our only “barometer”, which clearly directs us on how to discern between the Spirit of God and other spirits (1 John 1:1-3), and we can find nothing in scripture that directs us to use our “feelings” in knowing which is right and which is wrong.

 

How many times have we heard this one; “Just follow your heart, it will never lead you wrong”! Yet Jeremiah says: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9. Jesus also warns us about trusting the heart. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” Matthew 15:19.

 

Much like the calendar, the clock and the thermometer that keep us in reality as far as time and temperature are concerned, God’s word keeps us in reality when it comes to our spiritual understanding and well being. What may “feel” right to us may not always be the case. Also, what may seem to be unreasonable in our eyes may very well be scripturally sound teaching.

 

The fact is; the simplicity of a true worship service may not make one “feel” as excited as the emotional highs that so many experience at so many of the so called “church” gatherings of today, but if one is honoring our Lord with praise and adoration then that person is most assuredly a blessed individual.

 

 We must at all times accept the word of God over any of our feelings, for it is the truth (Romans 3:4). If we are holding onto anything (a belief, an understanding, a tradition, an ideology, etc.) that does not concur with God’s word then we must put it away, no matter how strongly we may “feel” about it.

 

Sam Everett