Speak What You Believe, Not What You Feel

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (NKJV)

Negative emotions are real. We feel what we feel. We can feel anxious or depressed. We can feel hopeless or confused. Living the victorious Christian life is not about denying our feelings. It is about taking captive what is not of Christ and making it obedient to Him. Because while our feelings can be fleeting, God never changes. His Word stands true through all times and all situations. Ultimately, what we believe as Christians must be bigger than what we feel. God must be bigger in our lives than our emotions. Because while our feelings may betray us, God never will.

The power of life and death reside in the tongue. We give power to what we speak. The world teaches the importance of "letting it out" but the reality is that we do not let it out at all we merely reinforce it. We seek out friends or professional counselors to further the reinforcement. We seek out teachers or even clergy to further the reinforcement. God understands your feelings but He is asking that you look past that and ask yourself what do you believe? When you wake up in the morning and your feelings do not match your beliefs, which do you speak? To which, do you give power to?

The Prophet Jeremiah was called by God, just as we are. Jeremiah must have felt unsure, skeptical, and probably frightened at the prospect of having to speak on God's behalf. He told God he was too young for the task. Here was the response from the Lord:

The L ord replied, "Don't say, 'I'm too young,' for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. Jeremiah 1: 7 (NLT)

God corrects Jeremiah for speaking his feelings over his faith. Our words matter. They determine how we approach the work God has called us to. Words of defeat will lead to defeat. How does God counteract this?

And don't be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the L ord , have spoken!" Then the L ord reached out and touched my mouth and said, "Look, I have put my words in your mouth! Jeremiah 1: 8-9 (NLT)

Forget what your emotions say to you! The Lord has spoken! His words have been put into our mouths. Yet we do not speak that. We speak death instead of life. We can go around the same mountain of our feelings forever. We can circle the mountain time and again. Maybe it started as a small hill in our lives. Something we just couldn't see past. The more we spoke to the feelings attached to that hill the larger it became in our lives. Soon it is a small mountain, than a larger one. Soon it seems insurmountable. We just keep going around and around, waiting for God to remove it. Here is what Jesus said:

I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, 'May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. - Mark 11:23 (NLT)

Jesus did not say HE would throw your mountain into the sea. He said YOU must speak to the mountain. Your faith is what moves the mountains because you believe in His power. He did not say to speak about the mountain. Assess how big it is and how it makes you feel. Take what you know and what you believe and SAY to the mountain be thou removed!

As Christians we are in covenant with God Himself! I attended a sermon this past week where the speaker reminded us that we are in fact under contract with God. We have a contractual relationship with Him that is binding. David understood this contract when he addressed the problem Israel was facing with Goliath.

David asked the men standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" 1Samuel 17: 26

What David is saying here is that he understands that he is under contract with God! His covenant affords him protection and deliverance. His reference to Goliath as an uncircumcised Philistine is a reminder that Goliath had no such contract (circumcision was the outward sign of the contract between God and Israel).

The mighty men of Israel were all cowering in fear. They allowed their feelings to be bigger than what they knew and believed. Goliath had become bigger than God to them. What David believed however was bigger than the giant standing in his way who he knew had no contract with God. The giants we face in our lives must also appear to be too big. We lend them power by what we speak into them. Even King Saul spoke death into the notion that David could face Goliath:

Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." 1Samuel 17: 33

Nevertheless, David understood his contract. His faith was bigger than the giant. Goliath mocked David as he approached. The world will also mock what God can do through the people He has under contract. What will seem impossible to the world can be destroyed with a simple stone and slingshot. Picture this now. Goliath was over nine feet tall and David was only a boy. Those are the odds God likes! There was still plenty of time for David to panic, feel anxious, or despair. He must have felt some human emotion within him like this. David was human. Yet despite his fear or trepidation, this is what David spoke into his situation:

David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands." 1Samuel 17: 45-47

The world comes against us with the logic of the world and the emotions it carries with it. The sword, spear and javelin are the fear, doubt and hopelessness we often can face in our lives. They simply overwhelm us. We see them correctly for what they are. Frightening by the standards the world has set up. But David gives no power to them whatsoever. He acknowledges them because they exist and faith is not the denial of emotions it is the confidence that God is bigger than them. David speaks life instead into what he believes. He speaks life into the name of the living God. The battle is the Lord's and He delivered David that day and still is delivering us today. David understood his contract and God honored it.

And what is our contract today as Christians? It is the Word of God. THAT is what we believe. That is what we place our faith in. Our key verse today reminds us exactly how strong what we believe is. First, the Word of God is living. It is not some random collection of writings from days long past. It is alive. The words on the pages we read are meant to provide life into our dead situations. The Word comes alive when we speak it into our situations.

My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body. Proverbs 4: 20-22

The men of Israel that day lost sight of the Word of God. The result was that their fear became bigger than their God. David though still had those words stored up in his heart. To David, God was bigger than the fear he was facing. The words became life for David.

The Word of God is powerful beyond measure. History is littered with great and powerful figures and super-power nations that dominated during their moment. They all faded however with time. The Nebuchadnezzars of time become mere footnotes in history to illustrate the mighty and powerful work of God. The three Hebrew boys in the Book of Daniel were facing the prospect of death within the confines of the fiery furnace. Their transgression? They refused to bow down to an image of the king. Nebuchadnezzar gave them one last chance and here was their understanding of the contract they had with God:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." Daniel 3: 16-18

They understood the power of the words they believed. The king would heat the furnace seven times hotter than normal. So hot it killed the men who were assigned to throw the three boys into the fire. These boys must have been afraid in their humanity. They must have been anxious, perhaps even doubtful in a mortal sense. But what they believed was stronger than what they felt. The result was that God delivered them as well.

The world will set you before the fiery furnace too. It will seem seven times hotter than is bearable for anyone to withstand and it will ask you what you feel. We need to answer as Christians with what we believe. The furnace was real. The heat was real. The impending death was real. The fear and unknown anxiety of the three Hebrew boys was real. But God was bigger and they knew it. They believed it. They spoke it.

The Word of God is sharper than any two edged sword. It cuts to the very heart of the matter beloved. It divides the soul, where your emotions are and your spirit, where your beliefs are. The soul is what connects us with humanity and the spirit is what connects us with God. God works through our faith our beliefs in Him and His Word. The spirit is concerned with the eternal. It values the eternal. The soul believes what it sees and feels it values the temporal. Both are real. This is not an exercise in denying your feelings. David surely felt fear when facing Goliath. The Hebrew boys must have felt dread when seeing the king heat up the furnace seven times hotter. They did not deny these feelings they simply made them obedient to what they believed.

Joseph spent 13 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He must have felt the whole range of human emotions during that time. Anger, resentment, disappointment, bitterness, rage, fear, anxiety, doubt. How could he not? He was not some plaster saint. He was but a teenage boy when he was thrown into jail. He emerged however a man of God. During the trials, his faith matured and his feelings were stripped of their power before the beliefs he held.

And we must too strip the power away from the feelings that seek to supplant God in our lives. As long as we speak our feelings instead of our beliefs we choose to empower them over our faith. We are under contract with God beloved! He has agreed to never leave us or forsake us. He has agreed to make us more than a conqueror. He has assured us that he has a plan for our lives to prosper us. These are just a few of the terms of our contract as there are many many more promises. The problem is that as Christians, we do not know our contract. We do not spend time in it to understand it and hide the terms in our hearts. We instead defer to what we see and feel. We see the giant and cower in fear because our rational mind has given more power to the fear than to the contract we are under.

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." John 6: 63-64

We do not believe because we give more power to what we feel than what we know. The flesh counts for nothing beloved. When you awake uncertain, afraid, or hopeless speak the Word of God! Speak joy into your sadness. Speak the certainty of God into your anxiety. Speak the goodness of God into your doubt. Speak the healing virtue of God into your illness. Speak to your mountain and remove it. God is bigger. He was bigger for David. He was bigger for the Hebrew boys. He was bigger for Joseph. He is the same yesterday, today and forever which means He is bigger for you too. Believe today.

Reverend Anthony Wade October 19, 2009