This is one more Note from Facebook that I put up a couple months ago! 🙂
I've been realizing recently that my faith is moving into a new stage… a deeper level with the Lord that I have not yet known. I have realized it's not by any emotional experience, but by what's going on in my head, not my heart… The majority of my walk has been lead by emotion, by the highs and lows of what's going on in my heart and in my life. This is exciting and great for a while, but then, when there's a lull of emotion or a flood of negative emotion, what do I do?
Recently, I have been making decisions not based off of my own emotions, but purely out of my understanding of Christ and His will for my life. I have been making decisions JUST by FAITH.
The more I do this, the more I desire an increase of this because I am seeing that this is truly what the Lord desires of me. I make a decision based off of my understanding of Christ, however opposite of my own emotions that decision might be, and THEN I am filled with a passion and fire in my heart at the realization that I am doing the Lords will for no other motive than HIM alone! The few times I have done this recently has brought soooo much fruit and affirmation that it is making me realize how called we are to this and I am excited to finally be in this place. I am now realizing how much I need to apply this to the daily sins that I commit. Most, if not all of the sins I am aware of committing on a daily basis are the direct result of an emotion that I have. I am understanding what scripture says when it says "deny yourself" on a whole deeper level. I am aware of this in my life, of the leading my emotions have on me, and I am making the conscious effort and serious decision to chose CHRIST over my emotions. To really deny myself and truly take up my cross and follow Him could never be an emotional choice, but could only be done out of a faith lead by my trust and understanding of Christ, not out of a faith lead by my emotions. I have so much faith and trust in Him that I would much rather push my emotions aside, then try to stand by them – I am trying to submit my own will daily so that I may understand HIS! HE is who will lead me forever. He is worth taking up my cross for – PURELY for who He is, not for how He makes me feel!
I hope this makes sense and that whoever reads this is blessed!
Here's the devotion I read that spurred on this note:
The Trial of Faith by Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest
"We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith — faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to know the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with HImself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of FAITH, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by it's very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him — a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is — "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." (Job 13:15).
