Fighting With Feelings -- Now Resting in Faith

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." (Isaiah 26: 3)


Our mind is at peace, resting in God, because we trust Him. We can trust Him because of all that He did at the Cross through His Son Jesus.

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Galatians 5: 16)

When I read this a few years ago, I had believed that walking in the Spirit meant that I had to do something.

If we read a few chapters prior in the same Epistle, we find the following:

"For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 19-21)

Christ lives in us, and we live through Him, not through our efforts:

"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. " (Colossians 1:16-18)

then

"27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." (Colossians 1: 27-29)

He lives in us, He works in us, and He wills in us all that He wants us to (Philippians 2: 12-13)

His life and power will not flow in our lives, however, if we are trying in our own efforts to live this life.

For so long, I lived in chronic fear about controlling my thoughts and feelings. I feared meeting certain people or doing certain things because of how I would feel.

Today, I recognize that how "I felt" was not me in the first place.

Furthermore, He is keeping me in perfect peace not because of how I feel or what I am thinking.

I can rest in His faith, and thus the thinking and the feeling follow.