These Dang Emotions (5)

Good morning, CHURCH!

(Church joke of the day)

I saw a “Cathy” cartoon that I thought would fit in church.

It’s not a joke but I believe it will make a good point.

You youngsters are probably saying, “What is a Cathy cartoon?”

Cathy comic strips were drawings by this lady named Cathy Guisewite.

She is an American cartoonist.

This particular cartoon strip was about a lady trying to diet.

It illustrates how a tempting thought, if left unchecked, can manifest into full-blown sin.

Remember, she is trying to diet.

Frame 1: ‘I think I’m going to take a drive but won’t go near a grocery store.’

Frame 2: ‘I think I’ll just drive by the grocery store, but I will not go in.’

Frame 3: ‘I’ll go in the grocery store but will not go down the aisle where the candy is on sale.’

Frame 4: ‘I’ll just take a look at the candy, but I won’t pick any of it up.’

Frame 5: ‘I’ll just pick it up, but I’m not going to buy it.’

Frame 6: ‘I will buy it, but I’m not going to open it.’

Frame 7: ‘I’ll open it, but I’m not going to smell it.’

Frame 8: ‘Okay, I’ll smell it, but I’m not going to taste it.’

Frame 9: ‘Maybe I’ll just taste it, but I’m not going to eat it.’

Frame 10: ‘I’ll eat this one, but I won’t go by the store again.’

How many of you have applied that train of thought somewhere in your life?

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Pray (Lord, please give me fresh new revelation as I go before your word and listen to the message today.)

Let’s go to the book of Luke 11:13 NLT for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Luke 11:13 NLT

So, if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Back in the biblical days and still in some Eastern cultures when a bride was betrothed to her groom, they dwelt in separate homes in preparation of the big day. (The wedding)

And the groom would send the bride a gift. They called the gift “the mattan.”

Mattan is a Hebrew name which comes from the word gift.

It literally means giving.

The mattan was a sign of the groom’s love for the bride.

It was to encourage her in their days of separation and to assure her of his pledge to return for the wedding.

It was sort of guarantee of his faithfulness and promise of things to come.

If you remember, the children of Israel would celebrate once a year the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai.

They considered the Law to be a gift from God to His people.

This yearly celebration of the Israelites was also known as the Day of the Mattan or The Day of the Gift.

We’ve also come to know it as Pentecost.

And what gift was given on the Day of Pentecost?

You got it.

Jesus Christ the bridegroom, gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to all of us that would receive him, his bride.

2 Corinthians chapter 1:22 goes on to say:

2 Corinthians 1:22 NLT

and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything, he has promised us.

And if you flip over to chapter 5 verse 5 of the same book:

2 Corinthians 5:5 NLT

God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us, his Holy Spirit.

Every time you read or hear, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him, remember that this is his gift to us while we are separated for a time to guarantee that he will return for us on that great wedding day when he cracks the sky.

Let’s get into today’s message.

These Dang Emotions (wk5)

If your new to this series, we’re covering some signs of Emotionally Immature People.

You should be recognizing immature emotional actions more and more by now.

Our theme verse:

1 Corinthians 13:11 NLT

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

Today we are going to dive into what these emotions are for and what they are good for.

We all have emotions and we all have emotional needs.

Emotional needs are feelings or conditions we need to feel happy, fulfilled, or at peace.

Without them, we may find ourselves feeling frustrated, hurt, or dissatisfied.

(What if you’re in relationship with someone who is emotionally depleted and needy?)

Some examples of emotional needs might include feeling appreciated, feeling accomplished, feeling safe, or feeling part of a community.

As humans, we seek emotional nourishment as much as we seek the nourishment of food and water.

(The problem comes when we seek emotional fulfillment from other humans that are not emotionally healthy enough to give us what we need.)

This is why it is so important to seek the emotional needs we have from our heavenly father.

Abba will always make you feel appreciated, loved, safe and if you’re not a part of a community he will lead you to one.

We don’t think much about it but as humans we all have emotional needs just like we have physical or financial needs.

Let’s look at some of our emotional needs.

We all have the emotional need to feel secure.

If we are ever to fully develop our God given potential, we need an environment that enables us to grow without experiencing traumatic fear on a regular basis.

We all have the emotional need to choose.

In order to feel fulfilled we need to feel like we have the freedom to choose and direct our own lives.

That’s why God doesn’t force us to obey Him or follow Him.

He gives us a free will and leads us as a loving Shepard.

Rev. 3:20 behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

We all have the emotional need for attention.

We need to receive attention from the people we care about. Especially in the early years from birth to 5 or 6 years old.

We all have the emotional need to feel connected.

We need to feel connected to other people.

We need to experience friendships, love and intimacy.

We all have the emotional need to feel apart of something.

We all have some social needs in us. Our very brain is a social organ. We need to feel connected to something greater than ourselves.

That’s why community is so important.

Solitary confinement for too long is not good for us.

We all have the emotional need to feel a sense of self.

It’s not enough to be in community.

We need to have a sense of our value within the community.

If not, we will be in community and still feel alone.

We all have the emotional need for privacy.

Although solitary confinement is not good for us in long stretches, as we mature, our mental and emotional well-being requires that we have time and space to reflect on and learn from our experiences.

We all have the emotional need for achievement.

Our self-esteem needs to feel a sense of accomplishment.

And the more mature we get the more our sense of accomplishment needs to be tied to something meaningful.

We all have the emotional need for purpose.

There is something in each of us that desires to feel like we have a purpose for our lives.

We need to feel like we’re a part of something greater than ourselves.

Now, when we take a step back and look at all of the emotional needs within us and we look at the state of the emotional health of our society, you can see why we can’t grow anymore spiritually than we can grow us emotionally.

Today let’s start with:

Point #1

The emotionally immature have a history of impulsive behavior.

The emotionally immature don’t have a healthy balance of feeling versus thinking, so they quite often just go with what feels best.

We see an example of this in the passage in John chapter 6.

John 6:43-52 NLT

But Jesus replied, “Stop complaining about what I said. 44 For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. 45 As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46 (Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only I, who was sent from God, have seen him.)

47 “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. 48 Yes, I am the bread of life! 49 Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. 50 Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

52 Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.

These were followers of Christ. Later in verse 60 they were called his disciples.

They didn’t have a healthy balance of what they were feeling and what they should have been thinking.

The foundational definition of an emotionally healthy disciple:

“An emotionally healthy disciple slows down to be with Jesus, goes beneath the surface of their life to be deeply transformed by Jesus, and offers their life as a gift to the world for Jesus.”

Are you going to be and Emotionally Healthy Disciple?

If you’re watching online or here in the building, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?