Posted on 08/26/2013 7:45:52 PM PDT by ReformationFan
Breaking the Tyranny of Your Feelings
Here’s where Christianity opposes the “follow your heart” mentality of much of the Western world.
We are told, not to love ourselves first, but to focus on loving God and neighbor. We are told we are born sinners and need rescue from our fallenness, not affirmation of it. We are being remade in the image of God, so that the ever-deepening discovery of His grace and goodness to us is the defining marker of our life, not our own self-discovery. We live according to the declaration of acceptance pronounced over us through faith, not according to our own self-acceptance and the desire to fall into the good graces of others. Leaning forward isn’t celebrating yourself as you are now; it’s embracing the vision of who God is making you to be.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegospelcoalition.org ...
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
Ping
Love Jeremiah - I am reading his story right now - amazing stuff.
6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[a] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Very easy for some people to get Shakespeare mixed up with the Bible. “To thine own self be true” is from Hamlet.
Be careful expunging things - it can backfire on you.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - John 13:34-35
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ - Matthew 7:21-23
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For what is a man, what has he got?I'd have no problem with expression "always follow your heart" expunged from the language- "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!
That's a good point. But the expression is used in two ways. Sometimes people use the expression to mean, "do whatever moves you, regardless of circumstances or the effect on others." At other times, the expression means "to follow that which you know, deep down, to be right."
Live for Christ, not for yourself!
If you cannot be true to yourself, then you cannot be true to anyone.
This is wrong, or at least half-so: the command is to love your neighbor as yourself.
So then God is first, and there is an equality of others and self secondly.
I'd have no problem with expression "always follow your heart" expunged from the language-
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
Agreed, for the most part.
Reason without feeling is at best sterile and worst morally reprehensible.
Feeling without reason is at best animalistic and at worst insanity.
– Edward Fish
Actually, being “true to yourself” in the full sense requires knowing yourself. After all, how can you be true to someone you don’t truly know, especially yourself? BTW, truly facing yourself is not a pleasant journey, for we are all failed aka sinners. Few have the stomach for it. And fewer who truly try have the stomach for the fact that you cannot fully succeed.
But the modern version is a perversion. Translated, it means “indulge yourself.” On that path lays ruin...
“Live for Christ, not for yourself!”
Yes! But easier said than done. In fact, almost impossible. But that is no excuse not to TRY! And then failing, to pick yourself up and TRY AGAIN!
I’d say its completely impossible....
“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”(Ephesians 2:1-3)
....but thankfully....
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”(Ephesians 2:4-10)
That’s the Philipino Karaoke National Anthem.
Agreed.
We are created to fly to heaven, but we can choose to go off beam and crash into a mountain. We can do this thinking we are on automatic pilot.
Thanks for the ping. Great article. New tagline.
Best posting on this thread.
being “true to yourself” does NOT mean indulging every little whim or transitory feeling that strikes you. One moment you like chocolate, the next cherry vanilla. It means dedicating yourself to finding that which is your core. “Know thyself” , then and only then can you be “true to yourself”.
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