But when he saw the multitudes, he was
moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad
Matthew 9:36
OUR
EMOTIONS ARE NEITHER TO BE FEARED nor despised, for they are a normal part of
us as God made us in the first place. Indeed, the full human life would be
impossible without them!
A feeling
of pity would never arise in the human breast unless aroused by a mental
picture of others’ distress, and without the emotional bump to set off the will
there would be no act of mercy. That is the way we are constituted and what I a
m saying here is nothing new. Every mother, every statesmen, every leader of
men, every preacher of the Word of God knows that a mental picture must be
presented to the listener before he can be moved to act, even though it be for
his own advantage!
God
intended that truth should move us to moral action. The mind receives ideas,
mental pictures of things as they are. These excite the feelings and these in
turn move the will to act in accordance with the truth. That is the way it
should be, and would be had not sin entered and wrought injury to our inner
life. Because of sin, the simple sequence of truth-feeling-action may break
down in any of its three parts.
The
Christian who gazes too long on the carnal pleasures of this world cannot
escape a certain feeling of sympathy with them, and that feeling will
inevitably lead to behavior that is worldly. To expose our hearts to truth and
consistently refuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the
motions of life within us, and if persisted in, to grieve the Holy Spirit into
silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment