100%

A comment I received the other day really struck me and I had some further thoughts about it:

When any of us writes or speaks of hope or peace or trust in God, that doesn't mean we necessarily feel it in our emotions 100% of the time. I think it's a miracle that we ever feel it in this world! Even Paul, in Philippians 3, says,

7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

This is what we're called to - forget where we've been, it doesn't matter, and press on to where God wants us to be. Daily. Hourly. Minute-ly. (Ha! Every minute.) But, whether or not we feel something in our emotions, doesn't cease to make it true. If we choose not to believe, we may just lose some of the benefit of something that is true anyway. But that's another post for another day.

We are the children of God, if we have faith in Christ. That means that whether or not we FEEL it, there is a deeper truth that still stands. So, when we have deep peace it's because we are coming to know Christ. When we don't feel that peace, it's not any less true. We just have to hang on to the truth, no matter what we experience.

How many times do we value our experience as more "real" than what the Word says? I don't want to live that way. If God says it's true, it's true. Not that I have been made perfect, but I press on towards this goal. Especially in our generation, I think we're afraid of being seen as "hypocritical" or phony if our emotions vary. Everyone's emotions vary some. It doesn't change the truth, which is the truth, no matter what.

Thoughts?