How to Feel God When You Read the Bible (Part 3)

I used to despise any and every emotion, deeming emotions fleeting and untrustworthy.

I read the Bible according Inductive Bible Study Methodology. 

Specifically, I used Howard Hendrick's Bible Study Methods:

OBSERVATION.  INTERPRETATION.  APPLICATION.

 

No emotion.

Pure reason.

 

After all, "Emotions come and go.  We know God through scripture," as I just read in one of my comments.

 

I used to feel the same way.

I wanted consistency. 

I wanted certainty.

I wanted something that wasn't fleeting.

 

But as I did my Bible Study Methods, I saw that God Himself feels!

Do His emotions simply come and go?

Are God's emotions fleeting and untrustworthy?

 

• God FELT pleasure when He looked at all He made.  This is not a theological truth alone, but a historical fact!  God had feelings!
• He FELT displeased with Adam being alone.

• God approved of Abel's offering and disapproved of Cain's.
• His heart was FULL OF PAIN in response to the evil in the world before the flood.  In fact, He felt so much pain and grief that He regretted even making people.

God not only feels, but He feels things deeply.

 

• Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus and at the sight of Israel, upon whom He felt intense compassion.
• The Holy Spirit is deeply pained when we reject His leading.

I said in the beginning to "leave your brain at the church door," and to "stop thinking" for the time being.  I said that because we so often approach God with cold intellectualism that we forget He is a real person with real feelings.  Supreme and Sinlessly Perfect Feelings, but Feelings none the less.

 

Of course you shouldn't leave your brain at the church door.

Nor should you leave your heart.

 

Think God's thoughts when you read the Bible.

Feel God's feelings when you read the Bible.

 

We do this by God's Spirit in us, who alone knows the Mind of God, and who alone makes the heart of God known in His inspired word.