Mastering Your Emotions And Purpose I
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
II Timothy 1:7 NKJV
God gavr us emotions for us to feel beautiful things as we interact with all of existence, so
Our emotions are too important to not seriously consider when we are working out the details of living our purpose. Many people have been led astray and away from their destinies by being controlled by their emotions, so we must learn to master them so that we can fulfil our purpose gloriously. We cannot focus so much on the spiritual and physical aspects of living out our purpose to the point where we neglect our emotions. We are Spirit, Body and Soul after all.
Through the Golden Rule, Jesus gives us a perfect summary of how we can fulfil our purpose on earth to be true workers of righteousness who know God and make God known to all of creation. The Golden Rule instructs us to love God with all our heart and love our neighbours as ourselves, simplifying the entire law and the prophets designed to make us like God, for the fulfilment of our purpose.
Our first point of call is loving God, and to do this we must first receive His love so we can respond to it. No man wakes up one day and happens to love God, so you must be a person who receives His love first and receiving the love of God does two things for you;
Firstly it makes you see yourself as God sees you, by seeing Him clearly so you can respond to His love by observing how He loves and treats you and responding to Him from this place of understanding. Secondly, receiving the love of God makes you so secure in His love that you can look outside yourself to all of creation and interact with them as selflessly as God interacts with you. Your existence becomes less about you, and more about the love you feel for others because of the love you enjoy and experience in God.
Doing all of this requires you to be emotionally mature and balanced because loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbour as yourself involves dealing with God’s emotions, your emotions, and the emotions of other people to start with (because as you advance in your interaction with God and mankind, you begin to interact with spirits, and the rest of all of creation like the earth, the elements, and so on and as far as these things have life, they have emotions and feelings whether we recognize it or not. (Psalm 19:1, Psalm 148:2-3))
This means that as you set out to fulfil your purpose, there will be all kinds of interactions and relationships between you and all of creation, and emotions play a very serious part in the smooth flow of this interaction. This is why it is important to be emotionally balanced.
To attain this state of balance in our emotions, we should start by talking to God as we carry out an audit of our lives. Like the Psalmist after searching yourself, invite the Holy Spirit to come in and show you where you are lacking and what you need to do to be better. It might take a while because it is a process but the great thing is that many things can happen concurrently in this process.
Learn to step outside of yourself to see yourself without the bias of self-preservation. Practice honesty with yourself and learn to love the truth. It won’t kill you. Let the truth set you free. We must learn to question all our actions and motives with a heart of curiosity that wants to understand why we do, think or say the things we do, and not from an accusatory place.
To grow in the capacity to extend grace to others, we must understand that people (including yourself) are products of their socialization and experiences among other things, and at our core everyone is just trying to do what they feel is best for themselves, everyone is just trying to survive and make sense of life they have been given. When you take note of all the ways that God extends grace to you and you understand and appreciate it,
you can easily extend grace to others.
How we listen to others matters as well. It is wise to listen more than you speak, to listen to understand and not to respond, as you avoid minimizing the feelings or the experiences of others especially with your own.
Prayer Point:
Dear God, I thank You for the gift of emotions. I receive the grace to not be led by my emotions but by The Holy Spirit alone, in the mighty name of Jesus, I have prayed, Amen.
Meditation Prompt:
Spend some time speaking to the Holy Spirit about how you want your week to go. Don’t forget to journal!
Prayer Prompts:
6:00 am: Pray for Northern Nigeria. Pray that the gates of hell will not prevail over the church in the North. Pray for strength for our siblings there.
9:00 am: Pray for the grace to extend the kindness and the love of God to those around you, as God leads you.
12:00 pm: Pray for five churches that come to mind. Speak blessings over them as led by The Holy Spirit.
3:00 pm: Pray for your family, that God continues to shelter every member in His love and goodness.
6:00 pm: Pray for divine protection, that you and everyone you hold dear is safely cocooned in the hollow of God’s palm.
9:00 pm: Ask God what He wants you to pray about.