Is Your Salvation based on feeling or Faith??
Ac
17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and
find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Today many many people use feeling as their
primary measuring stick in religion.
Most times they based everything or most things on feelings instead of
scripture, that feeling override what the scripture says. Claiming that their feeling cannot be
wrong. Feels right then must be
right. I know what I felt, you cannot
tell me that it is wrong. " I know
that I felt it." However people expess feelings differently.
The Dagwood and blondie Cartoon. In first frame a rake falls in front of
Dagwood, and he concludes that he as a sign from God that he needs to rake his
yard. While looking for his ax a golf
club falls out and he decides that he has a sign from heaven for him to play
golf. This illustrates how our feelings
often reflect what we really want to believe.
Feelings is an interesting term which is
connected to emotion or emotions. The
term emotion, emotional is not found in the KJV Bible. Feel is in there only once Acts 17:27. And feelings is only in there twice.
Eph.
4:18-20 & Heb. 4:13-16
In neither case does it sanction using emotion
as a religious measuring stick. Yes we
are to have a tender heart toward God and not a hard heart that cannot be
touched by the Word. However emotion and
feelings can and often is misleading.
The man who in rage or compassion kills, steals ect, is being led by his
feelings.
Religious
emotional fever... I Chorn. 13:4-8
David leads Israel here and they are certain
that what they are doing is right and noble so they rejoice, play and
sing. Their celebration shows a high
degree of religious emotinal fervor but they were wrong Uzza died.
Sincerity
.. I Kings 18:25-29 Here the worshipers of Baal were
certainly sincere. Their practices
reflect that they were very emotinal about their worship But they were wrong.
In contrast Faithd, belief are in the bible
hundreds of times. This is clearly a
better Bible concept to base our salvation on.
Heb 11:1 ¶ Now faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This passage presents faith as somithing that
is real and tangible. It is not like
feeling or emotion that is illusive, mystical and unstable ever changing.
Ro 10:17 So then
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Bible Faith, saving
faith has only one origin, God's word.
If your views are not based on what God's word
teaches then it is not based on faith.
When your convicitons are based on feeling instead of what the Bible
teaches, you are not living by faith.
2Co 5:7 (For we walk
by faith, not by sight:)
Ro 1:17 For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The
just shall live by faith.
Heb 10:38 Now the
just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no
pleasure in him. It
is obvious. God had said that we must
live by faith. Your salvation must be
based on faith and not feelings.
Since faith comes by hearing God's word, God's
word is the acid test to determine what is right or wrong not what feels right.
Heart feelings can be evil. Heb 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in
any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
Our heart can and often does miss lead us.
Pr 28:26 ¶ He that
trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be
delivered.
Pr 30:12 There is a
generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their
filthiness. Most people are pure and right in their own
eyes.
Pr
10:20 ¶ The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is
little worth.
Heart feelings can also be deceitful. Jer
17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can
know it? 10 I the LORD search the heart,
I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to
the fruit of his doings.
God would have you know about the heart,
emotions, he wants you to know that it is inclined to be evil.
However
many object says that their feelings are different. Having a vision they as "I know what I
saw" or "I know what I felt"
Let's not be fooled by these things but rather let us base our views on
Faith and see what God has said in his word.
The heart is only reliable when you trust in
God.
Ps 112:7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting
in the LORD.
Lets allow faith in God's word determine our
emotions not the other way around. Do
not let our emotions determine our faith.
Our emotions are only good when we walk by faith and not by feelings.
Visions can be false. Ezek. 13:2-9
2 Th 2:10-12
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish;
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed
not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
You
can cause your own dreams Jer. 29:8-9 For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of
Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you,
deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.
9 For they prophesy falsely unto you in
my name: I have not sent them, saith the LORD. {falsely: Heb. in a lie}
But Gal 1:8
Concllusion Heb. 11:6 You must have faith. If
your religious views are based on feelings or emotion and not on God's word
they are not of faith.
Pr. 3 5-6
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own
understanding. 6 In all thy ways
acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
11/1/89
T>H> 11/8/98 B.C.
