[BOOK SUMMARY] HARNESSING YOUR EMOTIONS

Harnessing your emotions

Andrew Wommack was brought up in a Christian home in Arlington, Texas, and made a total commitment of his life to the Lord at a very early age.

But it was not until he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a teenager that he began to experience the power of God in his life. Since that time, he has served as pastor of three churches in progressive steps to the ministry God has called him to fulfill: teaching the entire Body of Christ the good news of our New Testament relationship with Jesus Christ.

Andrew is fulfilling this calling as he travels throughout the world sharing the simple truths of God’s Word with people of various backgrounds.

He is heard on radio stations across America and has distributed over three million cassette tapes of his teachings free of charge.

LEAD #1: GOD’S ATTITUDE TOWARD EMOTIONS.

To harness means ‘to bring under control and direct the force of’. This is exactly how God wants us to deal with our emotions.

God himself is a God of emotions. This is why there are places in the bible where it stated that God is Love, a Jealous God, can be angry etc.

Emotions are meant for Enjoyment.
It is one of the spices of life that really makes it worth living. Little wonder why God looked at all he created and said ‘ Behold it is Good’ in Genesis 1:31.

Never allow your emotions to control you, rather be in control of your emotions.

Learn to hope and thrive in your emotions and not just to cope and survive with it which isn’t a lasting remedy.

People believe that if something negative happens, there must be a negative emotion to correspond with it.

They see emotion as simply a response, not a choice. They feel emotions aren’t what they must have control over. The current thinking if our days is the ideology ‘Emotions are just something that happens’

We aren’t animals that just respond to our environment, we are created in the image of God, who have the power of choice.

One of the fundamental and foundational differences between biblical emotional ability and secular psychological stability is that God doesn’t want us to live by what the natural dictates.
That’s why the word ‘Psychology’ , deals with the emotional and mental realm and doesn’t take into account the spiritual man.

It’s not our circumstances that is the problem, it’s how we are reacting to it that causes us grief.

When your heart is focused on God in the midst of the horrible situation around you, then you can have peace and joy even in the midst of it.

When you change your attitude, you will have emotional stability no matter what your circumstances may be.

God doesn’t make people emotional wrecks, it’s the devil’s way.

Sin is conceived in emotions.

If a woman doesn’t want to have a child, the time to exercise her choice is not after she has conceived, so that she can abort the unborn and take the life of an unborn infant. The time to exercise her choice is before she has that physical relationship that results in conception.

Remember it is wrong to use abortion as a form of birth control.

No one would ever commit the physical act of sin if they did not begin to entertain the emotions that conceive that sin on the inside of them first.

LEAD #2: WALKING BY FAITH, NOT EMOTIONS.

Let’s see what 2 Corinthians 5:7 has to say.
TPT: for we live by faith, not by what we see with our eyes.

Faith is a product of the heart which is the spiritual realm.

Emotions depend on our circumstances, which is the physical realm.

Emotions can be touched by the devil. This is why there’s always a fluctuation in our emotional state when negative things happen to us.

God didn’t design us to be totally emotionally dependent on anyone but him. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy your romantic relationship with your wife. However just recognise the fact that as time goes on, there’s going to be a maturing process. Love is not all emotions.

Never let your emotions control you.

Controlled emotions will be the result of spiritual maturity.

There’s a way to control a horse even though it is bigger than we are. But it can’t be done through brute strength alone. There’s a wrong way and a right way to go about it, and it’s the same without emotions.

Andrew wommack book summary

Emotions are a powerful force in nature, but that doesn’t mean we have to be at their mercy.

God’s word is the bit, bridle and reins that gives us control over our emotions.

LEAD #3: THE MIND AND THE EMOTIONS.

As Christians, our sense of peace depends not on our outward circumstances, but on our inward thoughts.

Let’s see what Isaiah 26:3 has to say.
TMB: People with their minds set on you,
you keep completely whole,
Steady on their feet,
because they keep at it and don’t quit.

TMB John 14:1-3.
1-4″Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me.
There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home.
If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you?
And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live

The reason God told us about our future and the glories he has planned for us is because we are in the middle of negative circumstances, the reason he wants us to ponder on these things.

Our mind controls our emotions.
You could tell ten different people the same thing and they will react in various ways simply because they’ve been pre-programmed to respond in a certain way.

As a Christian, make a deliberate decision not to allow these negative things to mold your thinking or determine your destiny.

We know that problems exist in this physical realm, but don’t let it control you.

Refuse to look at things that are seen and look at things that are not seen.
Look at things that are eternal and not temporal. Sooner or later. You’ll see those things manifested in your lives.

Believe and rejoice in it because that is true.

LEAD #4: THE TWO-FOLD FAILURE OF PSYCHOLOGY.

Psychology leads people away from dependence upon God to self-dependence.

Psychology views man as his own resource. Making them feel they should handle things we Christians know that God never created us to take care of on our own.

God didn’t create us that we will operate independent of him and His supernatural abilities.

The First Failure: Handling Guilt

They derive the notion that people’s problems are caused by themselves. They state that the mental picture people have of themselves on the inside, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on the outside.

Non-Christian psychologists and mental health experts who have no spiritual foundation attack Christianity. They view the bible as the source of guilt and condemnation and make a narration that people are guilt-ridden because of Christianity or Christian Ideology.

This is why the first thing these psychologists do to a new patient, is to take away their bible from them and tell them Christianity isn’t relevant, it’s wrong and its standards are not accurate because everything in life is relative, not absolute.

How very wrong they are.

2 Corinthians 7:9-10 talked about the purpose of guilt.

Guilt is like the physical sensation of pain.
The way we jerk when we touch a hot substance is the same way we feel guilty when there’s sin in our lives.

Since the majority of psychologists out there are humanists, they do not bring God into the equation, rather they deal with things from the human perspective.

The Second Failure: Self-Dependence.

Here, psychologists try to improve a person’s self- image by finding something positive they can focus on. Perhaps something else the person is good at.

Most Christians go along with this line.

The question is, what if that other thing they put their self confidence in has fallen?

We are actually supposed to be remote-controlled by God.

Psychologists, to a great extent, tell people to feel good about themselves by developing a self-positive image.

It builds on the foundation of ‘SELF’.

Psychologists say : ‘Any lifestyle you choose to follow is okay.
To them, bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism, is okay….

They further counsel: Whatever you do with your body doesn’t matter since it’s yours and not another’s.

When psychologists counsel people this way, they’ve not answered a problem brought before them, they’ve just put a Band-Aid on an amputated arm. It won’t stop the bleeding nor take away the pain.

Psychologists tend to numb people to a conviction of right and wrong by doing away with standards, which is very detrimental.

They further say: Everything is negotiable, even the consequences of sin are negotiable.

LEAD #5: A NEW PERSON

Let’s see what 2 Corinthians 5:17 has to say.
KJV: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

God doesn’t intend for a rebellious person to feel good and have great emotional health about his/her life.

Instead your feelings should drive to to the place of telling God that you need him.

Psychologists do more damage by directing people to cope with God.

God is the answer to our emotions and no pill can mean to us, what God means to us.

We need to see ourselves ONLY THE WAY God sees us.

Most psychologists don’t believe that anyone can become a new person. They usually ridicule such idea.

Some Christians still growing in the Lord, feel they’re now strong enough not to need God anymore nor ask for this help and his is a wrong concept.

The truth is that, as we grow in the Lord, that’s when we should be more dependent upon the new born-again life God has placed on the inside of us.

Not having this understanding is disastrous which is the attitude psychologists portray.

True salvation experience is coming to the Lord with nothing in yourself to depend upon.

Here, you’re not trying to clean yourself up, you’re asking God to do it for you.

See yourself as God sees you.

Remember:
You can’t be a thief if you don’t see yourself as one.
You can’t be an adulterer if you don’t see yourself as one.
You can’t be a liar if you don’t see yourself as one.

It’s more accurate for Christians to say
‘Christ-Esteem’ rather than ‘Self-Esteem’.

Before you embark on anything ask yourself, ‘Whose thought is that?’

The devil doesn’t come as a demon on the outside, rather he comes as thought on the inside.

Always line your thoughts up with God’s Word. Operating on this scriptural principle is part of letting the Holy Spirit rule and reign over your emotions and actions, and this can make a powerful difference in your life.

LEAD #6: WHO ARE YOU?.

“How do you know that what you’re seeing is true?” he asked. “How do you know your eyes are accurately interpreting to your brain the things you’re seeing? How do you know you don’t have some kind of a problem that causes you to see things that aren’t really there?”

When it comes to looking in a mirror, most of us have never challenged the validity of what we see. We are seeing a reflection which we, by faith, believe to be us. But it only represents us. It’s not the real us. For instance, we don’t know for sure that we have hair on the top of our head.

Let’s see what John 6:63 has to say.

KJV: The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

If the words Jesus spoke were spirit and life, then the Word of God is not just a book, it’s a look into the spiritual realm. It’s like a spiritual mirror we use to see spiritual truth.

Most Christians have the desire to do the right things, but they feel unequipped. They feel that they don’t have the ability.

Some say since they didn’t feel certain kind of feelings, it means they don’t have it.

We don’t need more faith. What we need is the realization of what we already have in Christ Jesus.
That’s the first step. Then once we know we have faith, we need to learn the spiritual laws that govern it.

Identifying who you really are in Christ and living in accordance with that identity is the key to the Christian life. The key to understanding who you are in Christ is recognizing that it is your spirit that got born again. It is your spirit that has changed.

Let’s see what Philemon 1:4-6 says.
KJV: I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

You can’t acknowledge something that doesn’t already exist.
Most Christians have the mistaken idea that what they need is out there somewhere in heaven. They think it is their job to try to get what they need from God and bring it to themselves. But that’s not what the Bible teaches. We’re not to go looking for something we hope exists. The Bible doesn’t say that our faith becomes effectual by getting God to put His life into us. No, it’s already there. It’s just a matter of acknowledging it.

Our born-again spirit is literally the Spirit of Christ. When we are born again, the new spirit we receive is actually the Spirit of Christ. It is our spirit and it is His Spirit. They are joined together as one. Everything that can be said about the Spirit of Jesus is also true of our born-again spirit.

LEAD #7: WALKING IN THE SPIRIT.

Many Christians see themselves as having been forgiven of their sins at the point they made Jesus their Lord, so their past sins are dealt with. But from the point of salvation on, every time they sin or do something wrong, they consider that to be a new infraction between them and God, one that has to be repented of and put under the blood of Jesus so it can be cleansed and washed away. They believe that if they were to die without having confessed, repented, and been forgiven of their sin, they would go to hell in that sinful state.

That is a typical belief among many Pentecostals, but it simply is not what God’s Word teaches. God’s Word teaches that when we accepted Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we were sanctified and perfected forever. Our spirit was made perfect once and for all.

Ephesians 1:13 has this to say.
In whom [Christ] ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom [Christ] also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.

Notice the word ‘SEALED’.

There are different types of seals. There is a seal like the one placed on the garden tomb where Jesus was buried after the crucifixion. (See Matthew 27:66.) It was an insignia that would show if anyone moved the stone away from the entrance to the tomb, because the seal would be broken.

There is also the seal of approval or certification, such as the Good Housekeeping Seal, which testifies that a certain product or service has been tested and shown to meet a certain standard of quality or excellence.

But when Paul says in Ephesians 1:13 that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, the seal he is referring to is the kind of seal that is used when a person cans food. They put it in an airtight container and then place paraffin over the top to ensure that no air can get in. In this way the contents are preserved, because the seal keeps out any impurities.

A lack of understanding has caused many believers to experience the love of God and to be excited and joyful about their salvation when they are doing everything right, but when they sin, they hit the skids and go through the depths of depression asking, “God, how could You love me?” They see themselves as sinful, contaminated, sorry, no good, worthless, and hopeless, and they think that’s the way God sees them.

Our worthiness is not based on anything we have done, but solely on what Jesus has done for us.

He has made us a new person. Once we understand that, it gives us boldness to enter into the very presence of God.

Let the Spirit-Man Rule.
Let The Peace Of God Rule.

KEY INSIGHTS FROM THE BOOK .

✍ Never allow your emotions control you, rather be in control of your emotion.

✍Emotions are meant for Enjoyment.

✍Sin is conceived in emotions.

✍God doesn’t make people emotional wrecks, it’s the devil’s way.

If a woman doesn’t want children, she shouldn’t have sexual relationship that produces them.

✍ Faith is a product of the heart.

✍Emotions depends on our circumstances.
✍Love is not all emotions.

✍ Controlled emotions will be the result of spiritual maturity.