when you know then you do…

the last question you ask is, how do i feel right before i’m tempted?  in other words you need to know your emotional triggers that make you vulnerable.

some people are most vulnerable to temptation when they’re frustrated.  just so frustrated and don’t know what to do.  then they get tempted to do the wrong thing.  some people are tempted when they feel lonely.  that’s the way they respond.  some people feel tempted when they’re angry.  or when they’re bored.  or maybe you’re tempted when you can’t sleep at night.  and you get up and you turn on a channel you really don’t have any business watching. 

the point is once you determine how, where, when, why, and what’s the most typical pattern – and there is a pattern in your life, it’s a pattern and you need to be aware of it – then here’s step two.  plan to avoid it.

it’s not rocket science folks.  once you know the patterns that tend to cause you to give in to temptation then you plan to avoid those patterns.  once you know the triggers, then you set some boundaries in your life that keep you from those situations.  as i said, if you don’t want to get stung then you stay away from the bees. 

proverbs 4.26-27 (gnt) “plan carefully what you do… avoid evil and walk straight ahead.  don’t go one step off the right way.”  if you just keep your eyes focused, don’t get distracted. 

there was this man who in1974 was living in japan and he was working as a short-term missionary in nagasaki, japan.  he said, “i was teaching english at a church and i was staying in the home of the permanent missionaries there in nagasaki.  every night as i would go home to their home which was up on a hill i had to every night (it was the only way i could get there) walk straight through the center of nagasaki’s red light district.  knowing that every night there were full sized posters of nude women on either side of those narrow roads and call girls standing out there seductively dressed all the way through the red light district.  i just made a covenant with my eyes, ‘i’m not going to look to the right, i’m not going to look to the left, i’m going to keep my eyes focused straight on because i don’t even want to be distracted.  if it gets my attention it’s going to get me.’  so i sat boundaries.”  plan carefully what you do, avoid evil and walk straight ahead. 

just a thought from the front porch…

doubt, faith, feelings and personality…

doubt can breed in our emotions. this can happen in several ways.

some people have a faith that is fundamentally built on feelings. like the moment they gave their life to JESUS CHRIST, it was such a euphoric experience and it is for many people—it’s exhilarating to know that all your sins are forgiven and you’re going to spend eternity in heaven. with some people it is an emotional high. but that doesn’t last. it begins to taper off. when that emotional high tapers off people begin to think that their faith is going away. like that gordon lightfoot song “i don't know where we went wrong but the feelings gone and i just can’t get it back.” the feeling isn’t the same so they think there’s a problem with their faith and they begin doubting.

the reality is they’re just misunderstanding the relationship between feelings and faith. faith is not fundamentally about feelings and emotions. faith is fundamentally a decision of the will to follow JESUS CHRIST. it’s a choice that we make. our faith doesn’t ebb and flow according to how emotionally charged up we are.

there’s another way doubts can enter into our emotions. certain personality types are more susceptible to doubt. certain people are more susceptible to certain illnesses, certain people are more susceptible to questions and doubts. these are the melancholy kind of personalities. they may be people who wrestle with a lot of angst, people who are very contemplative, very deep in what they think about. often they wrestle more than other people do with questions and doubts.

the problem really isn’t with them. GOD wired them that way. there’s no problem being a melancholic, contemplative person who happens to have a lot of angst in their life. the problem comes in when they compare themselves to other people. they may have a happy-go-lucky friend who’s doing fine and they look at their life and say, “why am i always questioning things? why am i always bringing up uncertainties? why am i always wrestling with angst and struggling?” that’s a personality deal. don’t compare yourself to other people. GOD wired you up this way. and that’s ok. just be aware you may wrestle with issues more than other people.

just a thought from the front porch…

feelings or facts…

the prophet elijah in 1 kings 19 in the ot got depressed because he played some mental games that everyone of us play when we get depressed.

his first mental game he played was he focused on his feelings rather than the facts. that always happens when we're depressed. we focus on how we feel rather than reality.

elijah felt like a failure. because of one little incident, he got afraid and ran. then he started condemning himself. “i'm such a coward. what am i doing running.” he felt like a failure so he said, “i must be a failure.” that's called emotional reasoning and it's wrong. it's the idea of “i feel it so it must be true.”

the truth is that feelings are not facts. they are highly unreliable.

i don't always feel close to GOD and you don't either. that doesn't mean i'm far away from HIM. i don't always feel like a CHRISTian, but i am one. feelings lie! when you focus on your feelings rather than the facts you're going to get in trouble.

secular psychology says the key to health is to get your feelings out in the open. become aware. vent your feelings. get them out. but that's not enough. feelings are not always true. the bible says don’t get in touch with your feelings, but get in touch with the truth. it's the truth that sets you free.

some of you are depressed right now because you're living by your feelings instead of the promises of GOD. you say, “i feel overwhelmed and i feel hopeless, therefore the problem must be impossible to solve,” but that's illogical. you may say, “i feel like GOD is far away, therefore HE must be mad at me.” not true. maybe you're saying, “i feel inadequate, therefore i must be worthless.” that's not true. don't focus on your feelings. focus on the facts. the bible says in john 8.32 (niv), the truth sets you free.

just a thought from the front porch…

love in action...

the bible says, love is kind. as we go through, verse by verse, this great chapter on love – 1 corinthians 13 in verse 4b (niv) – the bible says that we need to be kind.

so what is kindness? kindness is love in action. we said earlier that love is not a feeling. it is something you do. it creates feelings. it produces feelings, enormous emotions. but love is not a feeling; it is an action. the bible says that love is kindness in action.

now JESUS once told a story of three men who are traveling on the road from jerusalem to jericho, which is a very notorious road, known for muggers and thieves and they all come upon a crime scene and each of these three men responds to the crime scene in a different way. JESUS says these three men represent your three choices in life. you’re going to go through life with one of three attitudes toward the people around you, particularly the people in pain.

the first attitude is the keep my distance attitude. luke 10.30-31 (tev) says this: there was a man going down from jerusalem to jericho when robbers attacked him, stripped him, beat him up and left him half dead. it so happened that a priest was going down that road. but when he saw the man he walked on by the other side.

he walked on by the other side. this is the lifestyle of avoidance, or keep my distance. don’t ever get close to people because they might ask you for help. don’t ever get close to people because you might be needed by them. keep all your relationships superficial. keep them shallow. keep people at an arm’s length because if you get close, you might get involved. and if you get involved you might get hurt.

this guy says, i'll just keep my distance and go on my business on the other side of the road.

in your relationships is that your attitude, you keep your distance? that is not love.

just a thought from the front porch…

love is something your do…

the bible says that love is a conduct. it’s a behavior. it’s an action. it’s a way of acting. love is something you do.

the bible says in 1 john 3.18 (lb), let us stop just saying we love people. let us really love them and show it by our actions.

love is not something you feel. love is not something you say. love is something you do. it’s behavior. it’s actions. it’s an activity. it’s more than just talk. it’s more than just sentimental feeling. it’s more than a nice pretty hallmark card. love is something you do.

a guy was telling his girlfriend all the time, “i would die for you.” she said, “you’re always saying that, but you never do it.” love is something you do.

how many times have you thought: i need to write a letter to that person. i need to make a call. i need to give a word of encouragement to that person at work. i need to go next door to my neighbor’s and do such and such. and you have all these great intentions of loving and showing kindness and showing unselfishness, but you didn’t do it. and the opportunity bypassed you. now it’s gone. over. you’re not going to get it back. and you have missed an opportunity to grow in love, missed an opportunity to do that which matters most. love is a conduct.

just a thought from the front porch…

love is a choice not a feeling...

the bible also says that love is a choice.

we choose to love, and we choose to not love. it’s a choice. the bible says in 1 corinthians 14.1 in the message paraphrase, go after a life of love as if your life depended on it because it does. go after means make a choice. decide. choose. we choose to love or to not love.

that destroys another myth that we have about love. we think love is uncontrollable. as if one day i'm just walking along and i'm instantly in love – no control over it. even the terminology we use is kind of accidental – i fell into love. like it’s a big ditch or something. i fell in love. “help! i’ve fallen in love, and i can’t get up!” as if i have no control over my choice to love or not love.

i can’t tell you how many times i’ve had men or women say to me, trying to justify a separation or divorce: i just don’t love him/her anymore. as if that's totally out of your control and now because you don’t love her that gives you the right to divorce her or leave her.

let’s be honest about this. love is a choice. you need to rephrase that: “i'm choosing not to love him any more.” because it is a choice, and you could choose to keep on loving even if they didn’t love you. that’s your choice. in fact, the truth is, acting in love when you don’t feel like it is actually a higher level of love than when you do feel like it.

it’s one thing to love when the flowers are in bloom and you’re on a honeymoon and things are going your way and you’ve got a lot of money to spend and things are going great. but the real test of love is when things are not going great in your life, when you’re out of money and when you’re sick and don’t feel good, the pressure is on and you’ve lost your job. you choose to love in spite of how you feel. that’s a higher level of love. loving in spite of your feelings. loving in spite of your emotions.

have any of you gotten up in the middle of the night with a kid that was sick? that’s love. have any of you ever been kind and patient with your mate when they were grumpy and grouchy? one guy was asked, “do you wake up grumpy in the morning?” he said, “no, i usually let her sleep.”

love is giving a person what they need, not what they deserve. that’s what GOD does. that’s how GOD loves you. GOD doesn’t give you what you deserve. if i got what i deserved from GOD, i wouldn’t even be here, and you wouldn’t even be alive either.

but GOD doesn’t give us what we deserve; HE gives us what we need. that’s called grace. that’s called love. love is giving to another person without any guarantee of getting anything back. if you’re doing it to get something back, that’s not love. love is committing to the well being of another person without any guarantees that they’re going to give back to you. that’s love. it’s a command, and it’s a choice. it is not a feeling.

just a thought from the front porch…

love is not optional…

so what is love? for one the bible says that love is a command.

GOD commands that we love each other. it’s not optional. if we don’t do it, the bible says that we are sinning. the bible says this in 2 john 1.6 (nlt), love means doing what GOD has commanded. HE has commanded us to love one another.

some of you say, “i can live without love.” no, you can’t. you can exist without love, but you can’t live without it. and you can’t please GOD without it because the bible says GOD has commanded us to love each other.

because it is commanded, that brings up a corollary, and it is this: love is not a feeling. we know that because you can’t command a feeling. you can no more command a feeling than you can command the wind.

have you ever said to a little kid that is upset and crying and really frustrated: “i command you to be happy! i command you to stop crying!” you can no more command a feeling than you can command the mountains to move. feelings cannot be commanded.

love is not a feeling. it creates feelings. it produces feelings. love causes feelings, but love is not an emotion. if you think it is, you have a very shallow understanding of love. it creates emotion, but love is not an emotion. so you need to understand that. when people say, “i feel love,” you’re feeling an emotion, but love is more than that.

GOD would never command you to do something that HE doesn’t give you the power and the ability to do. and you can’t always control an emotion.

just a thought from the front porch…

there are feelings that we fear...

there are some feelings that really frighten us. one of the feelings we don’t like to admit is hurt. so we play this game called “is something wrong?” have you ever played this game at your house? somebody will say, “is something wrong?” no, no, everything’s just fine. “i can tell something’s wrong.” no. “did i hurt your feelings?” no, you didn’t hurt my feelings!

we don’t want to admit when we have hurt feelings. we don’t like to admit it.

another kind of feeling we don’t like to admit is anger. “i can tell you’re angry.” i am not angry. “yes you are!” i am not angry!

a lot of spouses just stuff their anger down. they don’t want to rock the boat. they don't want to upset the apple cart. so they swallow their anger and of course their stomach keeps score.

studies have shown that the healthiest families are not those that argue all the time. but they’re also not those who never argue. if you never have any conflict in your family you’re stuffing it. because there’s no way imperfect people can live together without having some conflict. no way. so it means you’re stuffing it, you’re putting it under the carpet if you never have any conflict.

you are imperfect and your spouse is imperfect. you married a sinner and she married a bigger one. there’s no way that two imperfect people can create a perfect relationship. forget it. don’t expect it. nobody has a perfect relationship because there are no perfect people. you’re going to have conflict.

the healthiest families are not those who have no conflict or who have it all the time. but those who have occasional conflict but they know how to resolve it, they know how to fight fair, they know how to resolve it without destroying each other, they know how to make up and they know how to grow from conflict. conflict can be good. it’s the only way you can grow to deeper intimacy. if you don’t ever face issues truthfully and honestly you’re at a pseudo intimacy level.

there’s another feeling that we fear. sexual feelings. most couples just don’t know how to talk about this. studies have shown that sixty percent of all married couples are dissatisfied with their physical relationship but they don’t even know how to bring up the subject. they don’t know how to talk about what they need, how to deal with it without hurting each other. if you don’t talk about it how do you expect any change? you’re mate is not a mind reader. there is no intimacy without honesty. so you have to deal with your feelings.

just a thought from the front porch…