Hijacked Emotions: Taking Your Power Back

"Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires" Rom 8:5

God, in His sovereign wisdom, purposefully made us thinking, feeling beings. Our emotions are meant to be an acknowledged, informative meeting place with our Creator and other souls. The curse of sin affected our hearts, souls, minds & bodies and our enemy knows this. His mission is to steal, kill & destroy (Jn 10:10). He is a skilled liar and accuser. If we believe his lies, we give him access to our minds and he is able to influence our behavior.

The believer has the Holy Spirit dwelling within. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness, faithfulness & self-control are His personality traits. When we walk according to the Spirit, we can develop these qualities more and more. It's through our renewed mind that our behavior changes (Rom 12:2). Our old nature will always resist the new.

Because we live in a fallen world, every human being has been touched by suffering. Our reasoning and reactions have been influenced by fear and self-protection. Abuse, neglect, betrayal, addiction & sickness have scarred countless lives. Satan takes advantage of fear-based, learned behavior; to create strongholds of thought. Without intentional, consistent mind renewal, our emotions can become hijacked and used to keep us locked in harmful cycles of bondage.

Our foe, our flesh and our familiarity, are three factors that strongly influence our emotions.

Satan uses deception, unhealed wounds & memories to keep us re-living traumatic events. He knows our flesh is already hostile to God (Rom 8:7) so he continuously stirs memories to keep carnal fear alive. He tempts us with harmful ways to escape pain. He always pulls us towards extremes. The more we react to the lies, the more automatic and habit forming our reactions will be. Even when we want to be free, our flesh will cling to the familiar and we will believe we cannot change. Once we expose this lie, we can resist the devil, choose a different response and experience freedom (James 4:7). We can take our power back.

Anger, Sadness & Fear:

Anger is a necessary, Godly emotion. Jesus, our sinless Savior, got angry. This feeling is associated with a response to injustice. Some things are supposed to make us angry. We need to hate evil, corruption & oppression. Satan would push us to the extremes of indifference or rage. Godly anger acknowledges injustice, speaking & acting as led by the Holy Spirit. The Word also places a boundary of time on our anger, encouraging us not to "Let the sun go down", or let our anger fester

(Eph 4:26). Also, Jesus always allowed what angered Him to break His heart and move Him towards acts of kindness. He took action by speaking truth, helping & healing people. When we process our anger through acknowledgement, boundaries & compassion, we take away our enemy's ability to manipulate us with it.

Underneath what we're mad about, is what we're sad about. We are told to mourn with those who mourn (Rom 12:15) and to weep, mourn & lament (James 4:9). Indeed, there is much to grieve about in this fallen, often cruel, world. However, the believer mourns with hope

(1Thess 4:13). Satan wants us to be numb or depressed towards suffering. Both of these responses rule out hope. Jesus was well acquainted with pain. It matters to Him. God counts our tears and wastes none of our hurt. When we express our sorrow in a Godly, holy way and connect our hearts with others who suffer, hope cancels out despair. Sadness, can then produce humility and kindness in us, removing sorrow's sting. Satan cannot compete with Christ, our true hope.

Godly fear measures God as greater than all. Carnal fear is the lie against God's goodness. Painful experiences and twisted perception have taught us to fear, early on. This spirit of fear makes us feel powerless, unloved and takes away soundness (2 Tim1:7). If we do not learn and practice Godly fear, we will live in fear of suffering, people & circumstances. Anxiety will cause us to magnify the enemy's work and steer us to disobedience. We will focus on what we fear. Only God is worthy. Satan will try to convince us we can escape suffering through control or detachment. Godly fear measures God's goodness, in the midst of suffering, enabling us to overcome it. Satan wants us to fear everything but God. He knows when we worship God above all else, nothing else will matter. Repenting, turning our hearts to fear God alone, gains us true wisdom for overcoming the evil one.

Satan will not stop trying to hijack our emotions. He's a temporary, defeated foe with little time left. When we process anger, express sadness and repent from the wrong kind of fear, we exercise our God-given authority over our feelings and our enemy cannot use them against us.

May the Holy Spirit of the Living God teach us how to manage & master the root emotions of anger, sadness & carnal fear. May we fear God alone & avoid all extremes (Ecc 7:18), for His glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

All rights reserved, Sound Mind Awareness, Veronica Jimenez ©2020.