“You shall have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3……………………………
Who sits on the throne of your heart? Of your life? Does any of this sound familiar?
I’m going to do this because it feels right. I’m going to do that because it feels good. I’m not going to do that because I don’t feel like taking the risk. I’m not going to go to that place to do that thing because I feel afraid of what might happen. I’m going to buy this thing I found in the catalogue because I feel like doing something nice for myself. I’m going to cancel that trip I planned because there’s something else I really feel like doing instead. I’m going to quit my volunteer job because I don’t feel like putting up with that mean person anymore. I’m going to move to a different homeless camp because I feel like hanging around some different people. I don’t feel like making the sacrifice involved in what I know the Lord wants me to do next in life.
What is the common denominator in all this? Feelings! What I FEEL like doing. Where I FEEL like going. Who I FEEL like hanging around. Etc. A big etc. Who is sitting on the throne of our hearts, and our lives, when we live our everyday lives based on how we feel? Our feelings! Ourselves! Our selves! Me. You. Us. We. Human flesh! When we let our feelings reign, we live by them. God didn’t create us so we could enthrone our feelings. He created us to love and worship and obey and serve and enjoy His fellowship forever through faith in and a life devoted to Jesus Christ as Savior and LORD! Who is to be our LORD? Jesus! Who is to sit on the throne of our hearts and lives? GOD almighty! Jesus Christ! The Lord!
But we have a problem when we’re making our decisions, and taking our actions, and living our lives based on what we feel. The problem is we’ve put our feelings on the throne to reign in our lives instead of yielding our hearts and lives, FEELINGS INCLUDED, to GOD and GOD’S WILL for GOD’s GLORY.
Anyone who knows me, and my history, knows I was the queen, no pun intended, of letting my feelings reign in life. I lived and breathed according to how and what I felt. I was in bondage to self and to how I felt. I have always had very passionate feelings. Not little feelings. Big feelings. Big, loud, fleshy, boisterous, get-in-my-face feelings that have tried to boss me around and tell me what to do and lead my life. Oh, what a mess! Oh, what sin! Oh, what self!
When we follow Christ as Lord, self has to die! We have to die to self! In other words, NO MATTER HOW WE FEEL, no matter how small or big our feelings, they are NOT to reign. We need to submit them to God and His Word. We need to honor God, not honor our feelings. We need to revere Him, not self. We need to bow down to Him, not our feelings. We need to say NO to our feelings and YES to Christ!
Does this mean we will have an awful, miserable, yucky, etc., life? NO! Will it hurt, and be hard, and challenging, to say NO to our selfish ways and yes to God when what He commands us to do runs contrary to our feelings? YES! Absolutely! But the pain of denying self is NOTHING compared with the exceeding joy, the amazingness of drawing closer and closer in holy communion with, in blessed fellowship with, of joyful intimacy with, in ever growing nearness to God in Christ!
Who, or what, is reigning in your life? Are you? Your feelings? Someone else? Something else? Are your feelings your god? Your idol? Or someone you know, and love, or even hate? Or a false god? A false religion? There is ONLY ONE TRUE GOD. There is ONLY ONE LORD that is to reign in our lives. Not self. Not others. Not anything or anyone but THE LORD JESUS CHRIST – forever!
If anything, feelings included, or anyone, self included, except Jesus Christ, is occupying the throne in your life, it’s time to dethrone whatever or whomever is on the throne and magnify and exalt and love and adore and humbly and willingly bow down before the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY – forevermore! He is the ONLY ONE who BELONGS on THE THRONE of EVERY SINGLE ONE of our lives!