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We live in a world where people make their decisions predominantly on feelings or emotions. Some of the most important choices that people make in a lifetime are being made on whether it feels good or not. For example, "I don't feel happy in my marriage, I'll get a divorce..." or "I like this car, I know I can't afford it, but I want it?"
This mentality has even crept into the church where people do or don't do things in the church based on whether or not they "feel" like doing it, even to the point of leaving and finding another church that makes them "feel" better. And the acceptance or rejection of a sermon based only on how it made us feel.
We are emotional beings. Emotions enrich the human experience. However, we are not to be governed by our feelings, we are to be people of principle. Emotions change, principles don't!
Abraham and Sarah finally are given Isaac as was promised by God so many years before. Abraham's love for Isaac would have grown with each passing day as Isaac grew. It was under these circumstances that God chooses to test the principles of Abraham. Would Abraham choose to act on his principles or on his feelings when it came to sacrificing Issac? This would be where our emotions and our principles would come into conflict with each other. We know what we want to do in the flesh, but in principle we should trust God and know that He knows better than us in every situation because He is a wonderful and sovereign God.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.
The Bible does not say that Abraham went away for a few months and prayed about what God had said. It doesn't say he went away and asked for the advice of his friends, it just says that, "the next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son Isaac."
Without action our words mean very little and this is where the principle of obedience is tested.
1 Samuel 15:22 Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.
Philippians 2:8 And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.
Am I building life on my emotions or on biblical principles? So often we make decisions in the heat of the moment, instead of taking a few minutes and choosing based on principles of trust, obedience, and faith. Will we be governed by our often volatile and ever changing emotions, or will we be people of principle? Are we basing our choices on our feeling or on the Bible?
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