NEXT STEPS TOWARD LOVE, JOY, AND PEACE - Renovation of the heart in the dimension of feeling is a matter of opening ourselves up to cultivating love, joy, and peace, first by receiving them from God and those living in him and then by extending them to others.
But we do not approach the change the other way around, trying first to root out the destructive feelings. That is the common mistake of worldly wisdom. Love, joy, and peace fostered in divine fellowship crowd out fear, anger, unsatisfied desire, woundedness, and rejection. There is no longer room for them—well, perhaps there is for a while, but increasingly less so.
Belonging to Christ does not immediately eliminate bad feelings, but it does crucify them (see Galatians 5:24). Negative and destructive feelings are on their way to death in those who have put Christ on the throne of their life and have taken their place on his cross. This is the vision in our VIM (Vision-Intention-Means) pattern, but we must also intend this in all we are and do.
Our thought life will be focused upon God, and so our walk with Jesus will show us the details of the means required to bring it to pass. For many of us, coming to honest terms with our real feelings will be a huge task. To “let love be without hypocrisy” requires serious effort (Romans 12:9).
Ordinary life is so permeated with insincere expressions of love, alongside contempt and anger, that it is hard not to feel forced into hypocrisy in some situations. As we learn to avoid it, we shall begin to see what a huge difference that alone makes.
As we recognize the reality of our feelings, we agree with the Lord to abandon those that are destructive and that lead us into doing or being what we know to be wrong. We may need to write out what those feelings are in a letter to the Lord or confer about them with a wise Christian friend who knows how to listen to us and God at the same time. The Lord will help us with this.
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