Deal With How You Feel pt. 2

Paul Sheppard: And many of us have those things in our lives that need to be looked at, need to be confronted. You have to be willing to own who you are and where you are in life for the grace of God to have its maximum impact in your life.
Guest (Male): If you want to enjoy the full measure of God's grace, you have to take full ownership of who and where you are. Hello and thanks for being here for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Well, even when we're all alone thinking about our own struggles, our own sin, we may still find it hard to be transparent with God. But as you'll see today, the God who knows you best loves you most. He already knows your struggles. So, you might as well be honest about them so he can strengthen both your joy and your faith. Before we get going, let me remind you to stop by pastorpaul.net to hear any of our recent messages on demand including today's. That's pastorpaul.net. You can also subscribe to the podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcast. Now, with today's Destined for Victory message, Deal with how you feel. Here is Pastor Paul.
Paul Sheppard: We as believers need to learn to become comfortable in our own skin. Get used to being you cuz you are the one God loves. Get used to being the real you. Don't get into pretense. But come to be familiar with yourself and come to be accepting of the fact that you have strength and weakness. You have ups and downs. You have strong areas and you have challenging areas. God knows them. He wants you to know them and he wants you to know that his plan remains intact because it is based on who you really are. See, sometimes we get into this business of pretending to be who we're not. We get into this business of living in a kind of denial, in a kind of pretense, in a never never land kind of situation. There was a friend of ours growing up. She's in our youth group growing up. Her name was Gail. One day, a bunch of us were walking down the street and Gail was afraid of dogs and she saw a dog coming down the street and Gail screamed and closed her eyes. It wasn't a vicious dog, so the dog passed and everybody said, Gail, what's the matter with you? Why did you do that? She said, I closed my eyes so the dog wouldn't see me. And some of you close your eyes so the dog won't see you. Please understand though that you're only deceiving yourself cuz the dog's looking right at you. And many of us have those things in our lives that need to be looked at, need to be confronted. But because we become uncomfortable with our true self, we are not in a position to experience the full grace of God because you have to be willing to own who you are and where you are in life for the grace of God to have its maximum impact in your life. See, you are the real you. You're not the pretense you. You're not the facade. You're not the persona. You are the real inner you. That's you. It's not about the box. It's about Jack. Are you hearing me? I'm going to help you if you let me hear. It's not about the box. It's about Jack. I tell single people all the time, don't date the box. The box is not what you would be living with. Don't get caught up in that. I tell them all the time. No no no. You got to get to know who's in there. See, God knows who's in there. Now, we've got to become in touch with who's in there and you got to let other people know who's in there cuz that's the real you. And so I tell single folk, don't get into all of this superficial dating and and getting hung up on somebody's putting their best foot forward and all of that and people pretending to have manners when they really don't. And pretending to enjoy dressing up when they really don't and all of that and sitting there in the darkness and the romantic music and the light of the candle flickering in their face as you talk and glance across the table and speak softly when you know you're loud and rowdy. Uh-uh, that's the box. Turn those lights up. Get out of that romantic atmosphere and let's crank this thing till Jack comes out. No, pick a fight if you have to. You want to see Jack. That's who you want to see. The box is cute and all of that. Music is nice, but I'm going to keep cranking till Jack pops. Cuz you live with Jack. And God knows Jack. God already knows Jack and for you ladies, God knows Jack Wellen. God knows you. And yet the God who knows you has a plan for your life. And so we said it's really important that you become comfortable with that. And the second point we established is that not only does God have a plan for our lives, but God is passionate about our lives. We saw that Jesus is a high priest who can sympathize. He drank a full cup of the human experience, we're told in these verses in Hebrews 4. He is able to sympathize because he lived a life among us. He was fully God, but he was also fully man. And he lived among us and he drank a full cup of the human experience yet without sin so that he could be our great high priest and so that he could sympathize with us. God's passionate about our lives. God doesn't want you to hide your humanity cuz Jesus himself experienced humanity and he is able to be a great high priest. And because God has a plan for our lives and because God is passionate about our lives, then the third point we made is that God has promises for our lives. There's great hope for you if you will be real. There's great hope for you if you will be honest. There 's great hope for you if you will deal with where you really are in your life. Don't pretend with God. Don't play games with God. Don't live in denial. Denial is a river in Northern Africa. It ought not characterize your life. Your life ought to be characterized by honesty and realness before the God who loves you and who has a plan, who has passion and who has promises for your life. And so we want to learn then since God says in his word, I know you and I still love you, that we want to learn to be comfortable as people who are known of God. We want to be comfortable in dealing with how we really feel. Now, sometimes we are in a position where we are willing to do that but need handles and that's why the word of God comes along to give us real handles. And so I just want to share with you then based on those three foundational points, I want to share three additional practical points now about how to deal with how you feel. These are principle oriented. The first is to admit to your feelings. Don't lie to yourself. No matter what the feeling is that you're dealing with, you want to own it. You want to admit to where you are. If you're in bitterness, admit it. If you're frustrated, admit it. If you are struggling with unforgiveness, admit it. If you are fearful, admit it. If you are worried, admit it. Whatever the emotion you're dealing with, whatever the feeling you're dealing with, admit it. Be comfortable enough to know that that's the starting point of help and of receiving grace is to admit, here's where I am. See, sometimes we try to filter and say this doesn't seem to be a Christian feeling. No no no. Don't decide whether or not you're Christian by how you feel. You're Christian if you know Christ. If you've repented and trusted him for salvation and now the spirit of God comes into your life to teach you how to live the life that he has planned and promised to you. But you don't have to discount your emotions. God made you an emotional being. We are spirit. We have souls. We live in bodies. Three undeniable truths. You are a spirit created in God's image to have spirit to spirit fellowship with him. That's what makes you distinct from everything else in creation. You have that spirit that's created to be in fellowship with God. That's the essence of who you are. You are spirit but you have a soul. The soulless realm, the psyche, psychological realm is very real. Don't deny it. It's part of your makeup, part of the variety of who you are. It's part of the miracle of who you are. Is your soulless realm. It would be made up of elements such as your intellect and your will and your emotions. That's your soulless realm. You have a soul that's part of your makeup and you live in a body. And being Christian, the goal of being Christian is not to try to be purely spirit and not address the issues of your life. Rather, the goal is to be spirit controlled, to have the Holy Spirit come take up residence in the throne room of your heart. And therefore, the spirit of God leads you as you deal with your soulless realm and as you deal with your body, the Bible teaches us how to be spirit controlled beings, not people who deny the reality of our challenges and struggles and emotional makeup. So, don't get into denial. Don't get into trying to second guess whether you ought to be feeling the way you're feeling. The people who can't get help are the people who won't own that they need help. Jesus said those that are whole don't need a physician. What did he mean by that? He meant if a person either doesn't recognize symptoms that might lead to a deeper problem, physical problem they're having, or they simply want to ignore symptoms and pretend like nothing's wrong, those folk will never show up at the doctor's office. Now, the sad reality is they might have something very wrong but very curable. And if they would go and say, would you check me out? The doctor could check it out and say, here's something wrong but we're catching it at a place where we can do something about it. But if you ignore symptoms or you just refuse to get it checked out in the first place, the sad reality is you could have something very wrong going on and by the time you are willing to admit it, it's because you don't have any choice. The symptoms are overrunning your life. And then when it gets checked out, the diagnosis comes back. It's incurable. And just like that happens with many people in the physical realm, it could certainly happen in every other area of your life if you are unwilling to address problems, unwilling to be honest about what's going on. When the fact of the matter is the great physician said in verse 16 of Hebrews 4, Come on to my throne with confidence. Come on with confidence. He didn't say come with confidence if you think you're living just right, if you think everything's okay, if you're kind of proud of the way you're living your life right now. He said, no, come. You come and you bring with you who you are, all the things that you understand and come knowing that there're even things that you don't understand but he does. And you admit to where you are. Whatever it is you're struggling with, admit it to the Lord. Admit to those feelings. Don't deny your soulless realm. It is very real.
Guest (Male): Don't go away. The rest of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd is coming right up. In all over the world, people are in search of the truth and that just so happens to be our mission to Destined for Victory, to share timeless truth for a victorious life so that everyone who hears these messages might come to faith in Christ. We'd love for you to join us in this mission by sending a generous gift today. Stop by pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. That's pastorpaul.net. Or if it's easier, call 855-339-5500. Well, anytime we're struggling with sin, the worst thing we can do is pretend that we're doing just fine. Now, let's get you back to the rest of today's message, Deal with how you feel.
Paul Sheppard: And we saw examples of people in the Bible who were very real. John the Baptist, who was a very powerful prophet but at a moment in his life, he wasn't sure that Jesus was truly the son of God. His emotions were causing him to question, Is he the one who should come or shall we look for another? I know my Messiah is coming and I know there was a time when I pronounced him as the son of God but now I'm not so sure. It was a product of the way he was feeling. And he needn't be ashamed of that. When his disciples came to Jesus with the question, they weren't rebuked. Jesus said, oh, okay. He wants to know for sure. Well, just stay with me. And as the disciples of John watched him minister that day, he then sent them back and said, go tell him what you saw. Let him make up his own mind. Let him make the adjustment in his own heart. Let him die with the assurance that he did exactly what the father put him on the planet to do. But he's willing to admit. You have to admit to where you really are. Please understand that admitting to where you really are is the first step, the necessary step to getting help. Now, let's say you're in flat out sin, that the feeling you're having is sinful itself or the product of sin, the result of sin. And you're wrestling with some issue of sin in your life. Should you be ashamed before God because you as a believer have some area of sin? Your anger has become sinful or your unforgiving heart is sinful. What do you do? 1 John chapter 1 verse 5 tells you this. 1 John, not the Gospel of John but the first of John's three epistles. If you're new to your Bible, go to the back and hang a left. Few books over, you'll catch it. 1 John chapter 1 Let's begin at verse 5. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. So, obviously the goal is for God to bring his children into living in light but you got to understand there's a process to that. Verse 7, But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. See, you don't want to live in denial because there's help, there's hope, there's promise for you. Although you are currently there's some area of sin, of disobedience, there's some area where you would be shameful. Jesus died for your shame. And so you want to understand that the goal is not to claim to be without sin when there is sin. But verse 9 tells you if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and here's the even better news and purify us from all unrighteousness. So, what do I do when I am dealing with sinful emotions, sinful anger, sinful unforgiveness or any such thing, a bitterness in my heart? What do I do? How do I deal with things that I really want to be ashamed of and hide from? We're told here that you take them to your father. When Hebrews 4:16 says come into his presence, it's not to come celebrating your righteousness necessarily. It's to come saying, Lord, here's who I really am. And you already know it but you call me to acknowledge it and to bring it to you that you might give me both forgiveness and cleansing. And so I bring my emotions, even sinful problems to the Lord. Don't let it drive you from God. Let it drive you to God because he is a sympathetic high priest who stands ready to forgive and to bless and to pull you up out of what you find yourself in currently. Now, here's the thing though that some of us have to understand as Christians, not all of the emotions we deal with take us into the area of sin. But you still want to learn to live in victory which means you want to admit to your feelings and sometimes your problem isn't nearly as spiritual as you might think. Sometimes your problem is more easily explained. See, there are not only spiritual laws, there are natural laws. And some of us live in violation to natural laws. And if you're violating natural laws, you still have the principle of sowing and reaping still applies. You reap what you sow. Some of us are not in sin, not in bitterness and unforgiveness and all of that. Some of us just have some more common feelings we need to admit to like being tired. And you need to as a believer be okay with admitting, I'm tired right now. I'm tired of people right now. It's okay for you to admit that. You go through seasons. Read your Bible. That's why you got to stay in your word. Read the Gospels. They tell you about Jesus' life. He who drank a full cup of the human experience, watch his humanity. There were times when you read the Gospels, when the people were coming looking for Jesus. Oh, we need healing. Oh, we need food. Oh, where's that Jesus? Where's that miracle worker? And the people are looking for him and you'll find him in the Gospels at certain times knowing the people are searching for him and the Bible says he heads in the other direction. Yeah, you read that and say, wait a minute. Maybe I have a wrong definition of what love is. Cuz if I'm operating by a definition that love means I'm available to people 24/7, 365, 366 in leap year. If I think if I have a message playing in my psyche that that's love and I don't love you if I run from you, well, you see I'm setting myself up. I'm violating a natural law. God made me so that I can't take but so much. There are times when I've had enough and when I read and see Jesus had enough, I say, oh, good. I read and say, oh, look at Jesus. He's running from the people. So, what does that tell you? That tells you don't be ashamed of yourself when you had enough. It's called being human. And there are times when you've had enough. Look at Jesus. Remember that night? See, we always focus on what he did, walking on the water and going rescue them. Look at what happened. He sent them ahead. He sent his disciples ahead saying, you all go. I'll see you later. Bye. And he stayed. The Bible says he communed with his father that night. He just needed to pray and chill out. That's what Jesus needed, to pray and to chill out. It wasn't more spiritual than that. He needed the communion with the father. That's, you know, nurturing his spirit man and he needed to just rest and not hear those disciples and their questions and their problems and their infighting and all of that. He needed the mind rest from all of that and he needed the physical rest. Now, if Jesus needed that, what makes you think you don't? You can't live better than him. There are times when you need to pack up your little grip and get out. Go somewhere. Leave the people or send them somewhere. There are times when that tells you that some of you need to learn to have the grace and the fortitude to take your phone off of the hook, turn off all those gadgets you bought, your pager, your cell phone, and all of that stuff and just decide Jesus died for the people. You shouldn't die for them. Jesus died for them. He laid down his life for them and him laying down his life did them a world of good. If you lay down your life form, I've told you many times before, if you think you're indispensable, I dare you to die. Dare I D double dare you to die. If you think you're indispensable, oh, but they can't my children, my grandchildren. If you think that they can't make it without you, when you check out of here, ask God to let you look back and see what happens. I don't know if he will but if he lets you see it, you'd be shocked. I know they'll go to your funeral and act like this is just the end of their lives. And depending on what culture they're from, they might really show out. I've been to some funerals where these families show out, boy. Put on a sideshow. Just acting like they can make it, just hollering and screaming, falling in the floor, acting like they want to get in the casket. All that is is emotion going a ride. They're not going anywhere. My grandmother would see people act like that. She said, no, turn them loose. Let them go. Uh-uh, go ahead. Why? Cuz she knew they weren't going anywhere. All that pretending you can't live. Those folk are going to figure out a way to keep on going. So, if one day they're going to figure it out anyway, you might as well let them get a head start. Let them get a head start. Figure out how to make it without you for periods of time. Because you don't want to defy natural law cuz you're not going to get away with it. When you need rest, you need rest. Prayer won't help you when you need rest. Somebody pouring oil on your head won't help you when you need rest. Some of you have to learn the natural formulas of your life. For some people, their formulas are simple. It's something like sleepy plus hungry equals cranky.
Guest (Male): Such great advice there at the end of today's message. Our issues aren't always spiritual. Sometimes we just need a little sleep. Thanks so much for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory message. Deal with how you feel. To learn more about the mission and purpose of Destined for Victory, I invite you to visit our website, pastorpaul.net. And don't forget you can always stream our program on demand at the website as well as see a listing of the great radio stations where we're heard. Again, that website is pastorpaul.net. Have you ever felt like God was a little bit distant, unaware, or maybe even uninterested in the crisis you were facing? Most believers in Christ have been there before. The good news is we've got a great resource that can help, our latest booklet, A Miracle in the Midst of Madness. You know, every Christian eventually finds themselves in a boat they didn't choose and a storm they can't explain. That's why this booklet can be so encouraging because it takes you to Matthew 14 to remind you of God's purposes for leading you in the storm in the first place. It's not to destroy you. It's to grow you. A Miracle in the Midst of Madness is our thank you gift this month for your generous donation to the Destined for Victory media ministry. You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.
Paul Sheppard: The second principle then is to allow others to know how you feel. Now, here's where some of us mess up because you might admit to God because you understand that he already knows you anyway. But the second principle from scripture is allow others to know how you feel.
Guest (Male): That's tomorrow in our continuing message, Deal with how you feel. Until then, remember he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.