WHAT THE LORD SAID TO ME TODAY
ARTICLE: The Gospel And Your Feelings
October 31, 2002

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Have you come to the place of maturity where you realize that your feelings and emotions are not a reliable barometer of just how you are doing at any particular point in time? Perhaps you have! How quickly do you realize that something strange is going on that you should pray about?

Certainly, you have all had the feeling of mild depression, for no reason at all. Or, you might find that you seem to have no quick decision making ability today, or you might feel that your driving skills are not particularly sharp on a given day. Worldly people blame these feelings or quirks on things like biorhythms, which no one can adequately explain or predict. What is going on?

Certainly, this week has had it’s share of these types of subtle erosions of our emotional capacities. We, as Christians, identify the source of these disruptions as Satan, and his hordes of demons, who are unleashed during this season of the high unholy, culminating with the devil’s own holiday, Halloween.

I find that sometimes, these emotional erosions come on so subtly that I do not recognize their demonic origin for hours or even days. I may operate under a fallacious assumption that these things are just the way I am today, or something like that, and fail to pray for aid from the Lord.

Certainly, feelings, and their swings from high to low and back again, are not unique to the Christian believer. Depression and all forms of mental illness seem to be at an all time high among our people. A significant portion of the American population is taking prescription medication for depression and mental disorders. The advertisements for these medications promise that you will return to normalcy when you take them, yet the people I have met who take these things seem to exhibit a vacant stair in their eyes, and they cannot be excited by anything or anyone. They go through life as a medicated zombie.

Sometimes, these people come to our churches.

I must confess that I have not seen many of them helped. Oftentimes, some minister prays for them at the conclusion of the service in the sort of expectation that one prayer is going to be a fix all. What often occurs is that the condition of the person is worsened. The demon, if you will, is not cast out. It is a throwback situation to the one described in the gospel where Jesus became very angry because it was reported that his disciples could not cast out a particular demon. Jesus gave the prescription for healing in this situation: “This kind does not come out unless you pray and fast a lot”.

Now, why would that be? The demons that empower depression are not driven out by the casual, end of service prayer, but are merely irritated enough to worsen the condition of the person. The person then may decide to avoid going to further church meetings. Most churches do not have a daily prayer meeting. And so, there are, in many cases, no solutions offered to such a captive person. It is easy to understand why the Lord got upset, and said of his disciples: “Oh unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you.”

I have concluded that casual prayers, offered by casual ministers, on a part time basis, without fasting, are not going to help these kinds of people. In fact, we seem to do more harm than good when we intercede for these people in a half hearted way. Warfare in this arena calls for more from us. How many are willing to pay the price? It is a real challenge of love.

Recently, our church began daily prayer meetings in response to the terrible illness that overtook one of our elders. We love this man, and we have paid a price in fervent intercession, and the Lord is healing him. But, this situation, and our victory in this case, has caused me to examine my own heart. I have known and met others who needed this kind of fervent intercession with fasting. Usually, these were people who suffered from the mental illnesses that I have described. Most of the time, the church has been unwilling to respond. Sometimes, I have been unwilling. Why?

I have come to understand that each of us possesses a finite quality of agape love. It has a limit. For example, let us assume that a man prays about two hours a day, and he has a job, where he works ten hours. Then, the man retires. Will the man pray more? The answer is no, not necessarily. He will pray to the extent of his love for the Lord. The availability of more time will not automatically cause that time to be given to the Lord. It will be allocated to those things he loves most.

I believe we need to love more, so that we can do more for the Lord. Only the Lord can give us this unconditional agape love that enables us to sacrifice personally for strangers. We might do that type of sacrifice for an elder of our church, who is a good man, whom we love much. Will we do it for the mentally ill stranger?

Only by the love of Christ! Oh Lord, give us this kind of love. We need it now.

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Stephen L. Bening



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