When
he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and
helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 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 am 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 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.
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