Faith and Feelings!

Sometimes people greet each other with the question, "What do you know?" instead of the more standard greeting, "Hello, how are you?" Frequently the greeting, "What do you know?" is answered with, "Not much." What are you supposed to say – "A lot? Everything? More than you do?!" So, again, "What do you know?" Sometimes we think we know a lot more than is really so! Want proof? Take this quiz: #1 How long did the Hundred Years’ War last? #2 What country makes Panama hats? #3 From what animal do we get catgut? #4 What is a camel’s-hair brush made of? #5 Where are Chinese gooseberries from? #6 How long did the Thirty Years’ War last? (answers below)

I hope you did better with those questions than I did! Religiously, people rarely confess ignorance. Ask someone are you sure you are saved and a common answer goes something like this – "Yes, I know I am because I feel it in my heart." Is that right? Can I trust I am saved just because I "feel" saved? What about those days when I don’t "feel" very saved and God "feels" far away? And what about Proverbs 14:12 which warns, "There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." Or Jeremiah 17:9 that warns, "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" I’m not against feelings in religion. We need "heart-felt" religion that "obeys from the heart" the God-inspired doctrines in the New Testament (Romans 6:17). What we don’t need is a faith based solely on feelings. Romans 10:17 declares, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Thus it is proper to put feelings in our (Bible-based) faith, but not faith in feelings alone! Romans 10:17 is found in the middle of the apostle Paul’s long discussion concerning the Jewish people’s ignorance of and rejection of Christ. The sound of the gospel had "gone out to all the world, and their words to the ends of the world" (vs 18). Paul and other inspired first century preachers had carried the good news of God’s Man and plan of salvation to Jews and Gentiles alike all over the Roman Empire. Romans 10 is a summary of what happened when they did – as a nation Jews largely ignored and rejected the gospel of Christ while many Gentiles accepted and obeyed it. Paul declares that the Jews "have not all obeyed the gospel" (verse 16a). In Romans 10:2-3 we discover they had strong feelings that they were pleasing God, having a "zeal for God, but not according to righteousness." Paul goes on to say in what many today would label as offensive langauge that they were "ignorant of God’s righteousness," and that they "have not submitted to the righteousness of God." There’s no way around it – they were sincere and felt strongly about their religion – but they were sincerely wrong! We must not trust religious feelings that are uninformed and unguided by Scripture, no matter how strong they are. The only way we can know for certain we are pleasing God is by trusting and obeying His inspired word (see 1 John 5:13)! Let us put feelings in our faith, not faith in our feelings. Think about it. (Answer to quiz questions: #1 116 years [1337 7o 1453] #2 Ecquador. #3 From sheep and horses. #4 Usually squirrel fur. #5 New Zealand. #6 Thirty years, of course, from 1618 to 1648.) 

         By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN