It had been nearly three years since I had talked to Pete. He was an alcoholic whom I had tried to counsel for awhile. But Pete wouldn’t take responsibility for his problem and finally stopped seeing me. So I was surprised one night at home to get a phone call from him.

On the phone, he wasn’t very pleasant. He asked a favor from me that I was unable to fulfill, to which he responded with a long string of profanity. “Pete, you are using that language to shock me,” I said, remaining calm. “But it won’t work. At one time, I probably said those kinds of words more than you.”

“I hate you!” he responded.

“Pete, that’s your choice. But I love you.”

That made him even angrier. It’s no fun to hate someone when that person won’t hate you back. Finally he spluttered, “I’m going to get you!” and hung up.

Normally, I’m an easygoing person, so this phone call didn’t disturb me. I told my wife, Amy, about it and expressed to her how sad it was that Pete wouldn’t recognize the truth and enter into the freedom that Christ wanted to provide him. It was late, so we headed to bed.

About 15 minutes after we had turned off the lights, I heard a car screech into our driveway. I got up and looked out the window. The car door opened and out stepped a wild-eyed man with unkempt, bushy hair, and he was holding a very long butcher knife. It was Pete!

My heart jumped up into my throat. “Amy, get in the closet!” I yelled.

Quickly, I ran into my son’s room, ordered him under the bed, and grabbed a baseball bat out of his closet. I ran past my daughter’s room and told her to hide under her bed. I stopped in the foyer by the front door and waited. I could feel my heart racing and my ears strained to hear any noise. For a moment, I was tempted to relax, knowing the front door was locked. Then I heard a loud thump as Pete put all of his 200 pounds into a brutal kick. Another kick followed, and the door flew open. Instantly Pete sprang into the house. But I was waiting for him. With all of my strength, I sent the baseball bat crashing down onto his head. But I didn’t let up. I hit him again and again until I was sure he was unconscious.

Then I backed away, horrified at what I had done. I turned, ran into the kitchen, and called the police...And all of this took place that very night – in my mind – while I was lying on my nice, warm bed.

The phone call from Pete actually occurred. The rest was only my overactive imagination responding to Pete’s words, “I’m going to kill you!” and living out the possibilities that soon seemed only too real. Pete never came to my house. There was nothing to fear. Yet my heart was pounding, my body was sweating and trembling with anger as I thought about defending my family.

I experienced these things because of a basic fact about human beings. Our emotions predictably respond to what we are thinking. In other words, emotions follow thought. My emotions didn’t know that there was no real danger. They simply responded to the vivid scene taking place in my imagination. It was as if the events described were really happening. That’s the danger with error. Whatever we put into our minds will affect our emotions.

Emotions are the most vivid aspect of our human experience. When we are in the middle of intense feelings, they seem like ultimate reality. Because of this, it is easy to rely on our feelings rather than truth to determine our attitudes and actions. In other words, “If it feels good, do it.” However, God never intended for us to be controlled by our emotions.

If we are to have a firm foundation to stand on through the trials and tribulations of life, it is important to know how our emotions operate and what their proper role is in our lives.

Keeping Feelings in Focus

I’m going to make a statement that may surprise you: Emotions are stupid! Why do I say this? Because our emotions have no intellect. They cannot tell the difference between fact and fantasy or between past, present, or future.

I remember once, when I was young, going to a horror movie with my brother and sister. We went to the movie to have fun. We laughed and talked, bought popcorn and candy. I knew it was just a movie, but when I saw Frankenstein up on that screen, I was so frightened that I climbed right under the seat. I embarrassed my brother and sister to death. I don’t know why. I was only 18 at the time.

Plays, movies, and television programs have the capability of pulling all kinds of emotions out of us – from intense anger to teary-eyed sadness – even though we know intellectually that it is only play-acting. I’ve known people who have gone to scary movies and tried to remain calm by telling themselves, “It’s only a movie...It’s only a movie...” But it doesn’t work. They may know that it’s only a movie, but when they see a crazed killer with a big knife standing right in front of them, their emotions respond accordingly.

Because our emotions have no intellect, they cannot analyze whether the scene in your mind is something that is actually happening or is something you conjured up in your imagination. They simply respond because God designed them that way.

Emotions cannot discern the difference between the past, present, or future. You can only feel something in the present. You cannot feel something yesterday. You can’t feel something tomorrow. It is not here yet. The only time you can feel something is right now. You may be dwelling on something that happened yesterday. Or you may be thinking about what might happen tomorrow. Your emotions cannot discern the difference. They respond as if it were happening today.

Jeri, a young woman in her mid-thirties, was having a serious problem with being single. There was certainly nothing wrong with her desire to be married. However, out of her loneliness Jeri began to indulge in fantasizing. She began to imagine her dream man – how he looked, talked, and acted. She started to create scenes in her mind of the dates they would take together and the things they would talk about. Jeri’s imaginary relationship became more and more detailed. It was perfect. They never had the quarrels, misunderstandings, or difficulties adjusting to one another that real people do in the real world.

Finally, Jeri’s “dream lover” fantasy became so dominating that she began to act it out. After getting home from work she would cook her dinner, set a table for two, light a candle, and have an imaginary conversation with her imaginary date! It was at this point that she realized she needed help and came to me for counseling.

This story demonstrates the influence of the human imagination, and how powerfully emotions, if allowed to run free, can take over a mind that is not resting in truth. Excessive fantasizing is very dangerous because we can invent an imaginary world that the real world cannot compare to. It then becomes increasingly tempting to retreat there from the difficulties of life.

Objective or Subjective Living?

We live in a material world. It is in this “material world” where our natural mind receives input through our five senses. The senses of touch, taste, and smell are activated by the presence of some object such as a dog to pet, a rose to smell, or a big, juicy steak to taste. For example, you cannot duplicate in your mind through your imagination what something smells like without the presence of the actual object. These senses are activated only by what is happening in the present. Just try to duplicate in your mind what a rose smells like. It’s impossible! Put a rose in front of your nose and you will know immediately how a rose smells.

Whatever our mind takes in through the senses of sight and sound can be recreated in our imaginations. Things you have seen or heard in the past can be brought back to memory, and your emotions will respond as if the event is happening today. Our emotions predictably respond to those thoughts in the mind creating desires. Then, those desires are acted out. This is what I call subjective living.

In subjective living, emotions are the engine that drives the train rather than the caboose. How a person feels, rather than what is true, determines actions and attitudes. The person living this way will always feel like he or she is on a draining roller coaster ride. It is a perfect recipe for burnout. And, it is not how God designed us to live.

Emotions in themselves are not bad. They merely respond to what you are putting into your mind. In their proper role, emotions are the very spice of life. However, if you allow them to determine your attitudes and actions, you have a foundation that will crumble under the strains and challenges of the world.

Continuously, on radio and in my counseling sessions, I encounter people who are living totally subjective lives, people who have decided that their feelings are the standard for determining truth. Some are living in direct contradiction to the Scriptures, yet justify themselves and say that their actions are not wrong. Others claim to have knowledge of truth outside of God’s Word. They have a feeling; they “just know” that God has spoken to them in spite of the fact that their decisions leave a wake of hurt, disillusionment, and confusion behind them. Apart from a reliance on objective truth, as we find in the Word of God, subjective living sets people up for deception and bondage to error. Let me illustrate this further. Recalling events from our past can stir our emotions to respond in the present. Through continually mulling over past hurts, resentments, disappointments, and injuries, we can make ourselves absolutely unable to function today. Those things may have happened a long time ago, but our feelings cannot tell the difference.

In the same way, we can also project through our imagination into the future and produce emotional responses today that are just as real as if those things were actually happening.

I once received a frantic phone call from a woman named Judy. She was nearly hysterical, barely able to talk through her sobs. It took real effort on my part to get her to tell me what was wrong. Finally, I got the story.

Judy had been experiencing some aches and pains, so she had gone to her doctor for an exam. At the appointment, the doctor told her she was experiencing some early signs of arthritis. “He told me it wasn’t very serious at present,” she sobbed, “but that there was a possibility it would lead to paralysis.” She began to sob again, bemoaning the progress of her condition in the coming years.

When I had all the facts, I said to her, “Okay, Judy, let me see if I can recreate what you are thinking. You have been diagnosed as having some slight arthritis in your hands. This illness has progressed to the point that you can no longer type, which for a legal secretary is pretty serious. You have tried to keep working, but your limbs have shriveled and gnarled up so the law firm has no choice but to let you go. At your advanced age, with your limited skills, and now with your physical condition, you surely can’t be trained to do any other worthwhile job. You are out of money, and so you have been evicted from your apartment. The outcome of all this, and what you see in your mind right now, is yourself: your crippled body dressed in rags, eating out of garbage cans, sleeping in alleys, and selling pencils on a downtown street corner to get a few cents for bread. Is that about it?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Then a quiet voice said, “How did you know?”

It’s no wonder Judy was a nervous wreck! After spending days creating and meditating on that terrible scenario, anyone would be at their wit’s end. Her thoughts were not true, but her feelings didn’t know that. Her emotions could not tell that those scenes were just imaginary projections of the future, so she was experiencing terrible fear. Simply put, emotions cannot be trusted.

If Emotions Cannot Be Trusted, Then What is the Answer?

Jesus said, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Therefore, the answer to Judy’s dilemma was for her to be transformed through the renewing of her mind by seeing her situation from God’s perspective, which is truth.

“Judy,” I said, “can you type today? Do you have a job today? Do you have money and a place to live today?” She answered yes to all of these questions. “Then let’s give thanks to the Lord today. He said, ‘Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’ (1 Thessalonians 5:18). I don’t know what is in your future, but I do know that the same Jesus who is in you today is already there! He is the One who said, ‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own’” (Matthew 6:34).

Judy did give thanks to God that day; and more than ten years after our conversation, she is still typing away. If you study God’s Word carefully, you will notice that it is not directed toward our feelings; it is directed toward our minds. In Romans 12, after the Apostle Paul urges us to present our bodies to God “as living sacrifices” in verse 2, it says:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Paul does not say, “Be transformed by the renewing of your emotions.” He says that our lives will be transformed by the renewing of our minds; his admonition is directed toward our thinking. This renewing is not something that just happens to you as you passively sit. It is the decision to present your mind to the Spirit of God through the Scriptures to allow Him to use truth to dispel error in your thinking, just as light dispels darkness. It is learning to look at God, yourself and all of life from God’s perspective (truth) rather than from your own (error).

Jesus said God’s Word...

1) . . . is truth.
Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.
(John 17:17).

2) . . . is eternal and universal
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35).

3) . . . is living.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23).

4) . . . sets men free.
To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

5) . . .speaks to the heart of man.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

Why is all of this important for us to know? Because the spiritual mind, programmed by God’s truth, bypasses the senses and emotions and goes directly to man’s spirit (1 Corinthians 2:15). It is the only constant, or plumb line, we can rely upon.

When you took high school chemistry, you learned that in order to make an experiment work you had to have a constant. Every variable must bounce off a constant. The same is true in our lives and the way we think. Without a constant, we cannot make this experiment of life work, and we will forever be depending upon our emotions as truth. However, there is nothing constant about us. We are walking variables. This is why it is, of necessity, that we recognize our need for a constant in life, and the only constant in this world is Christ and His Word.

Similarly, a carpenter cannot build a house without a plumb line. If he tries to eyeball its construction and build it according to what looks good in his own eyes, he will end up with a crooked house. He must have a standard that is inviolate. Regardless of what he feels or how it looks as he is going along, if he sticks to the plumb line, he will end up with a straight house. We must look at the Word of God as the plumb line by which everything is measured. Like a constant, without a plumb line in our lives, we have no way of determining what is truth and what is error.

Truth Sets You Free – Error Keeps You in Bondage

Computer programmers use a phrase represented by the initials GIGO. It means, “garbage in, garbage out.” Your mind is like a computer. Whatever you put into your mind, either programming from Satan and the world or programming from God, will determine how you feel. You can’t control your emotions; only your thoughts.

As you can see, the world operates with subjective living, a reliance upon feelings rather than truth. In the world, the order is: mind, emotions, and then action.

God’s order is the difference. We are to live objectively: mind, actions, emotions.

Objective living means focusing on, relying on, and acting on truth. We are first to present our minds to the Holy Spirit and rely on the Scriptures as our source of truth. Then, we are to step out in faith to what God’s Word says is true. Finally, our feelings will respond to that step of faith.

To the worldly observer, a person who responds to life objectively is a total enigma. His thinking, values, and decisions seem to be upside-down, and yet he appears stable, consistent, and mature. He has begun to grow in grace, but if you were to ask him about it, he would probably be surprised. He is only conscious of walking in dependency upon the indwelling Christ; it is Christ who is producing the fruit you see.

God did not create us as emotional robots, but rather to share His quality of life. It was the entrance of sin into the world that destroyed the harmony between mind, emotions, and will that Adam enjoyed. Now, until the Lord returns and we receive perfect bodies, we must be diligent to keep feelings in their proper place.

When you think about it, feelings are the most unreliable things in the world. They go up and down like a yo-yo. But God has given us something much more reliable than feelings to depend upon in life – Jesus Christ and His Word. Learning to renew our minds by God’s truth, and stepping out in faith is the first step on the road to experiencing true freedom from any emotional bondage.

EMOTIONS - CAN YOU TRUST THEM? by BOB GEORGE. Copyright © People to People Ministries, Carrollton, Texas. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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