Emotional Health

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, so that you may rejoice and be glad also in the revelation of His glory. If you are reproached because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. 

– 1 Peter 4:12-14 MEV.

In my family, one of our favorite people is a little girl with bows in her hair, braces on her legs, and a walker that holds her up. Her little body struggles to be healthy, but her soul is perhaps the healthiest I have ever seen. She has a huge smile, lovely personality, and kind word for everyone she meets. Every time I read Jesus’ words that those with pure hearts will be blessed, this little girl comes to mind.

This lovely little lady has spent much of her dozen years of life in the hospital undergoing various surgeries. On one occasion I was honored to be at her bedside as she came out of surgery and began to awaken. Her lovely blonde hair was shaved, and in its place were numerous large stitches from yet another surgery.

With parched lips and droopy eyes due to the medication, she looked at me and smiled. Holding back tears, I asked her how she was doing. She said, “I’m fine, but Mister Mark, how are you? I’m more worried about you.”

This little girl has been through more suffering than any child I know, yet she is perhaps the godliest, maturest, and most Christlike child I have ever met. In various conversations we have had, she has explained to me how her suffering has helped her more fully appreciate Jesus’ suffering and increased her love and compassion for others who are suffering. At times the profound insights she shares make it obvious that God’s Spirit is present and powerful in her suffering, giving her wisdom that defies the number of candles on her birthday cake.

Jesus suffered and yet He was blessed because the Holy Spirit rested upon Him in glory during His suffering. You can suffer and be blessed because the Holy Spirit will come to rest on you in a unique and glorious way when you suffer.

Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, that it may give grace to the listeners.And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outbursts, and blasphemies, with all malice, be taken away from you. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.

– Ephesians 4:29-32 MEV.

God is a passionate Person who wrote the Bible through passionate people to be read and obeyed by us passionately! Our emotional God made us in His image with emotions to have a loving relationship. Sadly, many have arrived at a passionless Christianity, and I believe there are four reasons why.

People are emotionally unhealthy. Some people are so emotionally unhealthy and untethered that their spirituality becomes little more than chasing experiences devoid of any real study or knowledge of God. It’s as if the Holy Spirit were a bartender and the church an open bar. Overreacting, others want to downplay the emotions because of unhealthy emotionalism.

People place mind over emotions. The modern era of rationalism so shaped some people that they read the Bible through the lens that the mind is more trustworthy than the emotions. Therefore, Star Trek’s Spock is the ideal being we should aspire to become.

People make God non-relational. In an effort to preserve God’s unchanging nature, they made God non- relational. In a relationship there are emotions between persons in response to one another, and so it is in our relationship with God. Nonemotional Christianity is also non- relational and nonbiblical.

People don’t connect the Holy Spirit with emotional health. There has not been sufficient emphasis on the biblical connection between the ministry of the Holy Spirit and emotional health. For starters, God the Father, Son, and Spirit have emotions. The Bible clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person with emotions— contrary to much false teaching in other religions.

We can “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30) as others before us have “rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit” (Isa. 63:10). When people have no regard for Jesus, the Bible says they have “outraged the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). When we have “loved righteousness and hated wickedness,” God anoints us with the Holy Spirit as the “oil of gladness” (Heb. 1:9).

There is no possibility of being emotionally healthy without a deep, intimate, personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. What is true of Jesus is true of you. There is no emotional health apart from the Holy Spirit.

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and self-control. So do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me.

– 2 Timothy 1:6-8 MEV.

We were bored little boys—until we discovered the blue tarp in the garage at our buddy’s house. Unsure what lay beneath, one of the boys yanked the tarp and revealed, in all its glory, a blue minibike.

We stood breathless as we looked in disbelief at this treasure. We had no idea where it came from or why it was there. Perhaps it was a gift from God like the chariot that took Elijah into heaven? For a boy, when a motor and wheels come together, something supernatural and sacred happens.

With the quiet precision of ninjas, we slyly rolled our little hog out of the garage. One of the boys jumped as high as he could and came down full force on the kick starter. Like Lazarus getting out of his grave in full glory, the old bike roared to life. Unfortunately the throttle was stuck open, and our buddy lasted mere seconds on the seat. Like an old bronco rider, he was quickly bucked off. The minibike, however, was stuck on full speed as it took off down the street with no one steering it.

Chasing after it down the road, we were screaming at the other kids in the neighborhood to get out of the way. Eventually the street beast tilted to the right and veered into a fence where it fell over as a tire kept spinning.

People are like that minibike. Experiences in life are like fuel. Emotions are like the motor. The will is like the handlebars. Without a driver, things get crazy fast.

Experiences in our lives spark our emotions, and very quickly our lives start operating out of anger, depression, joy, or whatever emotion we are feeling. The problem is, without a driver staying in the seat and holding the handlebars, things quickly escalate, and we are a lot like that minibike—out of control and barreling forward. If our feelings drive everything we say and do, it’s only a matter of time before the bad crash happens.

How did Jesus maintain emotional health? How can He help you maintain yours? That’s what we’re going to look at over the next few days.

The devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

– Luke 4:2 MEV.

You form your identity in one of two ways: you achieve it by yourself or you receive it from God.

When you achieve your identity by yourself, there are numerous problems. If you wrap up your identity in your role (mother, wife, husband, father, winner, beauty queen, etc.), when your role changes, you fall into an identity crisis. When the kids move out, the marriage crumbles, you lose your job, or age comes to diminish your beauty, you become devastated. You no longer know who you are.

When you receive your identity from God, you are able to remain healthy no matter what happens in your life. When you know that you are a loved child of God, you are free to stop living foryour identity—something that is never secure—and start living fromyour identity, which is eternally secure.

Who you think you are determines what you do. Because of this, when Satan attacks, he starts by undermining your sense of identity. In the first attack on humans Adam and Eve were told that if they did something (partake of the forbidden fruit), they would then achieve their identity by becoming “like God.” That, however, was a lie. God had already made them in His “likeness.” They had already received an identity of being like God, but somehow got spiritual amnesia and forgot who they were. They wrongly believed the satanic lie that they could achieve an identity by their own efforts.

Satan used this same tactic when he attacked Jesus. We read of the assault on Jesus’ identity in Luke 4:3, “The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’” Satan questioned Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. God the Father spoke this very thing from heaven over Jesus at His baptism forty days prior saying, “this is My Son.” Jesus did not need to do anything to achieve His identity as the Son of God. Unlike Adam, Jesus did not forget who He was.

Sometimes negative self-talk and negative self-image are a demonic attack on you and your identity, as was the case with Jesus. Knowing who God says you are as a loved, forgiven saint with a Father who never fails is the key to your victory, just as it was to Jesus.

Examine yourselves, seeing whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do that which is honorable, whether or not we may seem disqualified. For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak, and you are strong. We wish even your perfection.

– 2 Corinthians 13:5-9 MEV.

When Jesus said to love God and others with “all your heart,” it shows that we need to pay attention to and work on our hearts continually.

In life the “want to” precedes the “how to.” Good advice on howto do something serves no purpose unless we wantto do it. This is the heart of Christian living. Only after we want to do what is right are we then ready to learn how to do that very thing.

Be honest, how is your heart toward God? If you could pick one word (e.g., tender or hard, loving or angry, obedient or defiant, etc.) to describe your heart toward God what would it be?

Grace and I have been together since March 12, 1988. Then one day I asked, “How are we doing in our relationship?”

I was expecting her to tell me that she felt like she was married to Jesus. Much to my surprise, she took that opportunity to gently let me know that I had a lot of room for improvement.

I got a bit defensive. I asked why she had not told me these things before. She kindly reminded me that she had on various occasions and that I was not really listening or acting upon what she was saying. She was right.

I took the words of my wife to heart and scheduled a day alone with the Lord. My goals were to (1) pray to the Lord, asking Him how I could love better in my relationship with my wife, (2) listen, (3) journal out my thoughts with the Lord, and 4) study scriptures that pertained to what He would say to me.

But before God talked to me about my relationship with Grace, He spoke with me about my relationship with Him. The Lord convicted me that if I loved Him better first, then I would love Grace better, so I needed to start working on my relationship with Him first.

I believe that much of the time, God feels like my wife did. God loves you, and He wants a loving relationship with you. He has spoken to you through Scripture, your conscience, and the wise counsel of godly people about some areas you need to improve in order to nurture a loving relationship with Him and others. Have you been listening?