Last week we began our look at what to do when we just don’t feel like we are forgiven. This week we will start to examine why this may be the case—as well as—how to deal with these feelings in a biblical manner.
The Christian life is lived by faith rather than feelings. We get in trouble when we trust how we feel more than we do what we read in the Word of God. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” but, I just don’t feel forgiven after I confess my sins. Our problem is that we are placing a higher validity on our feelings than we are placing on what God has said. For some reason, no matter how often we hear it or read it, we think that this verse does not apply to us. We are acting as if our feelings are more trustworthy than God’s promises. If we had hard-core facts, you know scientific stuff before us this might be different. We are being asked to accept something by faith—and that is hard to do. So, because we feel a certain way—that is fact.
Some assert that this whole “faith” thing is hard to do. But is it? Is taking something on faith beyond us? The fact is that every day we take hundreds of things on faith. We look at our clocks and accept by faith that the whole concept of time exists. If we did not, we wouldn’t wake up and hurry to get places. We reach over and turn on a light switch accepting by faith that electricity exists—and that the whole field of electrical engineering is accurate in saying that those funny colored wires have little invisible electrons running through them. There is this “light bulb thing”—which can actually harness these invisible little electrons in such a way that light illumines the room. We turn on our TV’s without truly knowing how they work. (I mean, believing that there are invisible waves flowing all over the world through coaxial cables—or even worse flying through the air into a big metal dish-like thing on our rooftops—into our rectangular box on our wall—and that we see moving pictures as a result?) We get into cars and buy the line that tens of thousands of controlled explosions are happening in a block of hollowed out steel which moves our vehicles forward? Have you tested these things? So in reality, we do all these things by faith. It doesn’t matter how you “feel” about these things—they work these ways and do these things. You receive it by faith and go on with life. Can you imagine a life without faith—you would only do what YOU yourself could prove—and nothing more. If you felt like something might not be true—you’d have to abandon doing these things until you had absolute proof of it. That would cripple you physically. The truth is that you live by faith every day in hundreds of ways.
Our life of faith is based upon choices—made by faith. You trust the automobile dealer that a car will work when you turn that key in the ignition. You find him trustworthy—turn the key—and by faith (whether you know it or not) thousands of controlled explosions propel you forward. You turn on lights, live by time, and do myriads of things by trusting what others say about them. Forgiveness is trusting what Almighty God has said about what He did through Jesus Christ on the Cross—nothing more and nothing less. So the question is not how you feel—it now is this—Who do you believe? Answer this—and your feelings can change.
The Christian life is lived by faith rather than feelings. We get in trouble when we trust how we feel more than we do what we read in the Word of God. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” but, I just don’t feel forgiven after I confess my sins. Our problem is that we are placing a higher validity on our feelings than we are placing on what God has said. For some reason, no matter how often we hear it or read it, we think that this verse does not apply to us. We are acting as if our feelings are more trustworthy than God’s promises. If we had hard-core facts, you know scientific stuff before us this might be different. We are being asked to accept something by faith—and that is hard to do. So, because we feel a certain way—that is fact.
Some assert that this whole “faith” thing is hard to do. But is it? Is taking something on faith beyond us? The fact is that every day we take hundreds of things on faith. We look at our clocks and accept by faith that the whole concept of time exists. If we did not, we wouldn’t wake up and hurry to get places. We reach over and turn on a light switch accepting by faith that electricity exists—and that the whole field of electrical engineering is accurate in saying that those funny colored wires have little invisible electrons running through them. There is this “light bulb thing”—which can actually harness these invisible little electrons in such a way that light illumines the room. We turn on our TV’s without truly knowing how they work. (I mean, believing that there are invisible waves flowing all over the world through coaxial cables—or even worse flying through the air into a big metal dish-like thing on our rooftops—into our rectangular box on our wall—and that we see moving pictures as a result?) We get into cars and buy the line that tens of thousands of controlled explosions are happening in a block of hollowed out steel which moves our vehicles forward? Have you tested these things? So in reality, we do all these things by faith. It doesn’t matter how you “feel” about these things—they work these ways and do these things. You receive it by faith and go on with life. Can you imagine a life without faith—you would only do what YOU yourself could prove—and nothing more. If you felt like something might not be true—you’d have to abandon doing these things until you had absolute proof of it. That would cripple you physically. The truth is that you live by faith every day in hundreds of ways.
Our life of faith is based upon choices—made by faith. You trust the automobile dealer that a car will work when you turn that key in the ignition. You find him trustworthy—turn the key—and by faith (whether you know it or not) thousands of controlled explosions propel you forward. You turn on lights, live by time, and do myriads of things by trusting what others say about them. Forgiveness is trusting what Almighty God has said about what He did through Jesus Christ on the Cross—nothing more and nothing less. So the question is not how you feel—it now is this—Who do you believe? Answer this—and your feelings can change.
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