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Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/9/2008 12:05:45 AM
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Walker311
Posts: 1501
Joined: 4/11/2005
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I can spend some time thinking unhappy thoughts and before long... I am miserable. Likewise, I can spend some time thinking happy thoughts and events and feel very happy.
Humans can work themselves into frenzies... up, down, half full, and half empty.
However, there is no way for me adequately express how I feel about the Lord. I can tell you that I feel His presence and it is unlike any feeling I get with any human relationship.
I can meditate on Him and there is a serene and peaceful feeling. I can't work this up. I can hear someone tell what God has done in their lives and my eyes water and I get goose bumps. Why?
I guess this feeling thing may be something that God knows that I need and He supplies. If I never felt a thing, I do not think it would make a difference in my faith in Christ but it is a wonderful experience.
So, does feeling God's presence make a difference in your spiritual walk?
Have you struggled with this because either you feel nothing or you worry that you may be making yourself feel something that may not be real?
How do you know that what you are feeling is really from the Holy Spirit?
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/9/2008 2:32:54 AM
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SonInMe1
Posts: 3527
Joined: 4/16/2005
From: my mom by God
Status: online
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I have never heard an audible voice from God but I know the times He has spoken to me. You can just tell that the voice you hear in your head isn't from you.
quote:
Have you struggled with this because either you feel nothing or you worry that you may be making yourself feel something that may not be real?
The realness isn't the question for me. Its the infrequency.
_____________________________
You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
James 4:4
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/9/2008 7:30:27 AM
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makarizo
Posts: 2936
Joined: 4/13/2005
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quote:
there is no way for me adequately express how I feel about the Lord. I can tell you that I feel His presence and it is unlike any feeling I get with any human relationship.
sometimes (at work, at home, grocery shopping, at the beach.... etc.) when I am talking to God, interceding for someone, or something, praising Him, singing worship songs, the Sprirt rains down on me in a way that I cannot describe. so I have made up a term. and when I tell a friend that today I had a "Holy Ghoster", they know exactly what I mean (at least I think they do =)
I think the cognative theory is covered in this verse:
Php 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think on these things.
Php 4:9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
_____________________________
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/9/2008 8:07:51 AM
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deliveredarling
Posts: 1897
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God created us to have emotions. Part of having them means we have to learn how to control them- that whole self-control piece. The Bible speaks of many emotions. He didn't create robots. Our emotions tell us many things, if we ignore them, we are in essence ignoring God.
Does God' presence make a difference in your spiritual walk?
Of course, how can it not? there are emotions that come with feeling His presence. The two that stand out the most are Love and Awe.
No, I don't struggle with worrying about whether or not it comes from Him or is self created. I don't think He necessarily puts emotional reaction upon us, but the emotional reaction we have to Him is a natural response because of Him.
I know when I feel certain things that they come from the HS because they are God given, they are used by God as inborn alert systems, and sometimes He lets us know he is with us by an emotional reaction. Sometimes he just can't get our attention otherwise.
_____________________________
"Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed: but he puts it on a lampstand, in order that those who come in may see the light."
Luke 8:16
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/9/2008 8:50:49 AM
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growingseed
Posts: 160
Joined: 5/24/2005
Status: offline
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So, does feeling God's presence make a difference in your spiritual walk?
His presence does make a difference as i'm learning that is no place for me to hide. I think at one point in my life that there was a place within myself where i could hide with all my flesh appetites. I've learned that he see's all of me whether i try to hide or not, and knowing that helps me to walk in my new nature. Ps 139-11-12 - to him night and day are the same.
Have you struggled with this because either you feel nothing or you worry that you may be making yourself feel something that may not be real?
There is an awareness rather then a feeling of him in my life. When the Lord max's out all your senses with something only he can do, it makes you understand that his existence is all that there is, for everything that is, is because he exists. Like when you caught a wave the beauty of the ride is because you are free in the moment free to experience motion, or watching a humming bird feed, the beauty of the creation allows your senses to breath in his glory which most people will say that it was inspirational, but really it's the Lord showing us himself in our lives. Through the things we do see, but he reveals to us himself.
How do you know that what you are feeling is really from the Holy Spirit?
This is what i'm learning now to be able to differentiate between me and what the Holy Spirit is teaching. If i'm doing and not listening then it's me not the Lord. It's hard to really understand communication between flesh and spirit and there's no easy way to explain it, but the word say's that he is in me and i want to learn to make him pass through me to others, that's when it's the spirit.
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/9/2008 10:02:34 AM
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URForgiven
Posts: 929
Joined: 3/22/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Walker311
So, does feeling God's presence make a difference in your spiritual walk?
Have you struggled with this because either you feel nothing or you worry that you may be making yourself feel something that may not be real?
How do you know that what you are feeling is really from the Holy Spirit?
I've said it before...and I'm about to say it again...our feelings are responders. What we feel is a response to what we are thinking. If you are feeling sad, it is because you are thinking sad thoughts. If you are happy, it is because you are thinking happy thoughts, etc. etc.. Emotions follow thought and that is why error in our thinking is so dangerous.
There is a spiritual battle that is taking place. This spiritual battle is truth versus error, and the battleground is the minds of men.
As Christians we do not live by our feelings, we live by faith in Jesus Christ. And our faith is rooted in His Truth...
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2
As we present ourselves to God, present our minds to the Holy Spirit, He renews our minds. He dispels the error in our thinking with the truth. And that is very exciting! A proper emotion in response to a proper thought.
And that is how we know if what we are feeling is really from the Holy Spirit.
Peace
_____________________________
"Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit,
are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" Galatians 3:3
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/10/2008 7:31:54 AM
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makarizo
Posts: 2936
Joined: 4/13/2005
Status: offline
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i like the way David put it in psalms 40:
I waited patiently for the LORD's help; then he listened to me and heard my cry. He pulled me out of a dangerous pit, out of the deadly quicksand. He set me safely on a rock and made me secure. He taught me to sing a new song, a song of praise to our God. Many who see this will take warning and will put their trust in the LORD.
Happy are those who trust the LORD,
_____________________________
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RE: Does IT Make A Difference How You FEEL? - 7/11/2008 4:32:25 PM
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terryjohn
Posts: 450
Joined: 3/23/2007
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I once remeber a famous preacher confess that he personally had never felt the presence of God in his life. He had become a preacher as His father before him and I suspect his grandfather had been too. On hearing this I was shocked for are the graces of God of so little effect that we should live without knowlege of them? Despite this he was a good preacher but one I felt could neverpreach from experience but only from the accounts of saints of old. Like all men, I don't want to hear of other mens encounters with God, I want to encounter Him myself ! Fortunately, I personally have had some amazing experiences and encouters with the love, glory and grace of God, so much so that I have at times felt unable to live, much in the same way it is impossible for any man to see the face of God and live.
Nevertheless, despite these experiences, I am releaved that He brings me back to earth that I may recover from the shock of such, for too much of God's glory can make a man ill and pyshically weak. I am then convinced that God has given us a wide range of emotions both positive and negative that we must learn and experience, if ever we are to be called the sons of the living God for only the dead feel nothing. I will then let my emotions rage in faith and love for they are from the heart of God Himself. May Christ's passion be our own.
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