Emotions Are Warning Flags But Not Always Sinful

While each human being is different and we all have things that we need to work on, maybe the only thing that all of us have in common is that we are emotional beings. No, this does not mean that we respond to situations in the same manner or with the same emotions nor does it mean that our emotions are on the same level. Instead, it simply means we are real human beings with have real emotions.

These emotions are natural human emotions and, from time to time, we all fall victim to them. What we need to realize is that these emotions, in themselves, are not sinful. That is, the emotions are not but what we do with them may be. Take anger for instance as all of us at one point or another becomes angered. When we look as scripture, we see that Christ Himself was angered at different times including in the temple when He saw what the buyers and traders had turned the temple into.

When Jesus walked into the temple, He was angered because men were buying and selling cattle and sheep and exchanging money. This was shortly after the marriage in Cana where He performed His first miracle of turning water into wine. Christ went into the temple on Passover and was unhappy, so much so that He made a scourge out of small chords and ran the people from the temple and turned the money tables over (John 2:13-15). Just a verse later, in John 2:16, Christ tells those selling doves “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.”

One important aspect that I like to keep in mind is that we are made in the image of God and just like we are to work and love one another, there are times when anger is not a sin. When I was younger, I would get mad at myself for doing something wrong such as trusting the wrong people. Of course, we all make mistakes but I thought I was a better judge of character than what I actually was which caused a lot of hardships for me and certain people.

What I learned from these experiences is that it is fine to be mad at yourself for doing wrong but you should not beat yourself up over it. There are many people who react the same way when they are wrong as in any other situation or emotion and while we should allow ourselves room for errors and mistakes, we should also be proud that we represent Christ. As Christians, we should take pride in being a part of Christ and set boundaries to be more so maybe the best way to see an emotion like anger is a warning flag.

The reason a warning flag is warranted has to do with someone, maybe even ourselves, violated some type of boundary or standard of right and wrong. In many cases, the problem exists because we have compromised what the word of God says to meet today’s standards of right and wrong. This has been done for different reasons and one reason has to do with the acceptance of liberal Christianity which picks what verses of scripture to follow and what ones to ignore and this has led to a lot of confusion which is not of God.

Another reason is the mingling of worldly ideas with the word of God, another act of Satan, to make others feel comfortable and accepted which is similar to compromising the word of God as there is a real campaign movement or complete hijacking of God’s word in order to sway away as many of God’s followers as possible in order to completely change Christianity and the course of history. While We the People do live in a fallen state and Satan roams the Earth, it has become our nature to sin and if you think that I am wrong, just look at the mess that we see in our nation’s capital.

All of these people have emotions but they are risen or lowered depending on the issue and situation at hand. Many cite a difference of opinions and this is possible as putting down two people who share similar beliefs and ideologies will disagree somewhere but let me warn you, when you take two people from two completely diverse backgrounds and they do not have Christ, not only will their experiences differ but so will their worldview or their perception of what sin and the way we perceive sin is often based on emotions. If you do not believe me then look no further than Paul himself.

Paul tells us this in Romans 7:7-10: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.”

Paul was one of those who people just listened when he spoke. When he entered into a room, people wanted to know what he had to say even if they did not always agree with him. He was a very interesting man to say the least and one reason why so many people looked to what he had to say and why so many still look to his words and love him today has to with the fact that he lived both sides. In other words, he was on both sides of the fence as he literally persecuted Christ but after his conversion, he was a mighty warrior for Christ so people knew what he was saying were not just talking points passed down.

As I look back over my life especially the last year of it, it has humbled me to see just how God works and how He uses people. He does not necessarily use the most qualified or equipped to do His work but rather, the willing. When the world hands out positions, it is usually to the most qualified but God gives to those who are willing to do His work and in doing so, we are to embrace the role(s) that God has given to us. All we can do is our best while trusting God with the results and we must trust God because Satan knows scripture very well which is why we must put on the whole armor of God as if we go into a gun fight with a knife, we are likely not to be victorious.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.”

–Romans 7:7-10