When the Bible says those who cater to their emotions cannot please or satisfy G.o.d or be acceptable to Him, it does not mean G.o.d doesn't love them. You and I can be in a terrible emotional mess and still be loved by our heavenly Father. Having emotional problems will not keep us from going to heaven. It just means G.o.d is not pleased with our lifestyle. It puts Him in a position in which He cannot do for us all He would like to do.

We all want our children to be blessed and to share in our inheritance, but we are not inclined to entrust our inheritance to one of our children who chooses to follow a lifestyle of unbridled sensuality. G.o.d is not pleased with those who live by the flesh rather than by His Spirit because He cannot trust them with His best. G.o.d still loves us, but He wants to be able to give us the best He has for us in the new life He provided for us in Jesus.

Allowing our emotions to lead our decisions will definitely prevent us from having a life filled with peace and joy. Emotional decisions always create trouble sooner or later and we live in turmoil because of them. The decisions we make today will provoke circ.u.mstances we must deal with tomorrow. If I lose my temper and make an emotional decision to quit my job because my boss makes me angry, then I may end up with a lot of stress a week from now when I need to pay my bills and don't have an income.

Hebrews 12 says no discipline for the present seems joyous, but later on it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. The law of G.o.d's kingdom is that we always reap what we sow. If we choose to sow discipline and right choices, we will reap a life of joy and peace. However, if we sow emotional choices, we will reap a life of turmoil and sadness. G.o.d sets before every person life and death and He instructs us to choose life. Since we all have the privilege of free choice, we must take responsibility for our lives and no longer blame circ.u.mstances and other people for all the things that go wrong. It is very simple: if we make enough right choices, we will have a life filled with peace and joy!

CHAPTER 66.

One Step at a Time Healing of emotional wounds is a process, not something that takes place all at once or overnight. It requires an investment of time and diligent obedience to G.o.d's commands. I realize from my own experience that it often seems that no progress is being made at all. You may feel you have so many problems you are not getting anywhere. But you are!

You have to keep in mind that even though you have a long way to go, you have also come a long way. The solution is to thank G.o.d for the progress you have made so far and to trust Him to lead you on to eventual victory-one step at a time. If you are reading this book and happen to be someone who has spent your life making wrong choices and you feel you have never made any progress at all, then you can get started today changing things in your life by making right choices!

In my oral presentations on this subject I like to hold up several different colored shoestrings tied together in a knot. I tell my audience, "This is you when you first start the process of transformation with G.o.d. You're all knotted up. Each knot represents a different problem in your life. Untangling those knots and straightening out those problems is going to take a bit of time and effort, so don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen all at once."

All of us have many similar problems, but G.o.d doesn't deal with all of them at the same time or all of us in the same way. The Lord may be dealing with one person about anger or bitterness, somebody else about selfishness, and someone else about another area completely.

If you want to receive emotional healing from G.o.d and come into an area of wholeness, you must realize that healing is a process and allow the Lord to deal with you and your problems in His own way and in His own time. Your part is to cooperate with Him in whatever area He chooses to start dealing with you first. You may want to work on one thing, and G.o.d may want to start with something else. If you pursue your own agenda, you will soon learn that G.o.d's power is not available for that problem. The grace (power and goodness) of G.o.d is not there to deliver you outside of His will and timing.

I tell people in my seminars, "Being convicted by the message you hear in this meeting doesn't mean you are to go out and set up some kind of ten point plan for dealing with that situation. First you must pray and ask G.o.d to begin to work in that area of your life. Then you must cooperate with Him as He does it." We do need to make decisions and be people of action, but we must also remember that Jesus said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:5)." In the world everyone seeks to be independent, but in G.o.d's economy we must all learn to be totally dependent on Him.

In the world everyone seeks to be independent, but in G.o.d's economy we must all learn to be totally dependent on Him.

As G.o.d deals with each of us in one specific area at a time, it may take anywhere from one hour to several years. In my own case, the Lord dealt with me for one solid year to get me to understand He loves me. I will never forget it. I needed that foundation in my life. I desperately needed to know how much G.o.d loved me personally, not just when I did what I thought I was supposed to do, but all the time-whether I "deserved" His love or not. I needed to know G.o.d loved me unconditionally and His love was not something I could buy with works or good behavior.

As part of the process, I began to get up every morning saying, "G.o.d loves me!" Even when I did something wrong, I would say, "G.o.d loves me!" When I would have trials or problems, I would say it, again and again: "G.o.d loves me!" Every time Satan tried to steal my a.s.surance of that love, I would say it over and over: "G.o.d loves me! He loves me!" I read books about G.o.d's unconditional, unending love. I studied all the scripture I could find on G.o.d's love. I dwelled on it continually until I had that foundational truth firmly imbedded in my mind and heart: "G.o.d loves me!" Through the process of continual study and meditation in this area, I became rooted and grounded in G.o.d's love as the apostle Paul encourages us to do in Ephesians 3.

One of our problems is in our modern, instantaneous society we tend to jump from one thing to another. We have come to expect everything to be quick and easy. We won't stick with a problem until we see a breakthrough and know we have victory in that area.

The Lord is not like that. He never gets in a hurry, and He never quits. He will deal with us about one particular thing, and then He will let us rest for a while-but not too long. Soon He will come back and begin to work on something else. He will continue until, one by one, our knots are all untied. It may be hard, and it may take time, but if you will stick with the program, sooner or later you will see the victory and experience the freedom you have wanted so long. I finally learned to be excited about what G.o.d was doing in my life, rather than dreading it. When I initially began my walk with G.o.d and He dealt with me about a problem I had, I often thought, Oh no, not another thing that is wrong with me! I eventually learned that G.o.d dealing with me was a sign of His love for me. He loves us too much to leave us the way we are.

Let G.o.d be G.o.d in your life and don't forget to enjoy the journey. The important thing to remember is: no matter how long it takes, never give up, and never quit!

CHAPTER 67.

Keep Pressing Forward The main thing G.o.d asks or requires we do to bring about the answer to our problems is to believe and keep pressing on. Study the Word of G.o.d and spend time with Him. If part or all of our lives are in knots, we may not be able to untie it ourselves. The simple truth is we need G.o.d's help. Some issues in life will be harder to deal with than others, and if we merely try to take care of things ourselves we often end up making matters worse.

At one time in my life I became so entangled in my problems and my futile efforts to untangle them, I was no good to myself or anybody else. I was extremely frustrated most of the time and quite confused. I felt I was really trying to change and that nothing I did was working. Then I learned from scripture that G.o.d will frustrate us if we are not leaning on Him.

For G.o.d sets Himself against the proud (the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful)-[and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

Once I learned to let the Lord handle the problems and just cooperate with Him, things began to work much better. Now I enjoy a life of freedom in Jesus and am able to help others who are as bound and tangled as I was.

When G.o.d convicts you of a problem in your personality or life, just agree with Him. Ask for His forgiveness and be willing to change, but realize you cannot change without His help. Ask Him to change you rather than trying to change yourself. G.o.d works in our lives as we place our trust and confidence in Him, not as we struggle to do things ourselves.

We all need help in some way or another, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. There are many people who have been severely damaged emotionally. I have a feeling most of us at one time have been or will be part of that group in one way or another. Some people experience feelings of unworthiness. They have a shame-based self-hatred, a sense of self-rejection, an inner voice telling them they are no good, that something is wrong with them. For years I walked around with the nagging thought, What's wrong with me?

G.o.d works in our lives as we place our trust and confidence in Him, not as we struggle to do things ourselves.

When we are born again, the first thing the Lord wants to give us is His righteousness through His blood so we can stop asking what's wrong with us and start believing that something is right with us now that we are in Christ. Perfectionists are always trying to prove their worth and gain love and acceptance through performance. These people always struggle to do a little bit better in the hope someone will love and accept them more.

Still others are supersensitive. The apostle Paul said one of the characteristics of love is "it is not touchy" (1 Corinthians 13:5). Are you touchy? Would you like to be delivered? If so, part of the answer is to face the fact that if you are touchy, the problem is not with those who constantly offend you or hurt your feelings, but it is with you and your supersensitive nature. Being secure in Christ will heal you and keep you from getting your feelings hurt constantly.

One of the things that helped me in this area was a simple statement made to me years ago by a lady who was reading a book on this subject. She told me, "You know, the book I'm reading says that 95 percent of the time when people hurt your feelings, they didn't intend to do so." That means if you get your feelings hurt easily the reason is you choose to. The good news is you can also choose not to. When you lay aside supersensitivity, you will feel so much better about yourself and others! I know. My feelings used to get hurt if my husband didn't do something I thought he ought to do to show he loved and appreciated me or if he failed to compliment me when I thought he ought to. I now have confidence that he loves me, and I don't pressure him all the time to prove it.

If you walk into a room and don't get the attention you think you deserve, do you get hurt? Do you feel others don't esteem you the way they should? It is interesting that people who are supersensitive about what others do to them are often totally insensitive to what they do to others. If you see yourself in any of these things I am describing, you need to place that problem into G.o.d's hands and let Him do the work in you that needs to be done. It has helped me tremendously over the past few years to place myself into G.o.d's hands and let Him work out things for the best. I try to abandon myself to Him and trust Him to bring me what He wants me to have. I am learning not to look to other people to meet my needs, but rather to look to the Lord to fulfill my needs, as He knows best for me.

Be patient with yourself and always remember that G.o.d loves you unconditionally; and when He shows you something that needs to change, it is intended to help you and never to make you feel bad about yourself. We all have problems and areas in our lives that need to change. The most important thing is we press on! If you are willing to do that then G.o.d will see your heart and be pleased.

CHAPTER 68.

G.o.d Wants to Heal Past Hurts Affecting Your Present Many times people are supersensitive because they have been hurt in the past, so their bruised emotions are easily pained. That's why they are so touchy. I was that way. I was hard to get along with because I was so insecure. Like many people, because I did not get the love I needed for much of my life, I kept trying to get other people to make me happy. When I married, I became a "suffocator." Because love and affection had been denied to me, I tended to require too much out of anyone who showed me any fondness or attention at all.

I learned that in a marriage relationship, we must allow our partner some liberty. We must get rid of the fear of what the person may think of us and develop instead a reverential fear and awe of G.o.d. Why do some of us have such a tremendous fear of what somebody else thinks of us? The reason is we have a poor self-image. Do we become any less valuable or worthy in the eyes of G.o.d because of someone else's negative opinion of us? Of course not, but we feel less valuable unless we are secure in who we are in Christ. People who have a great deal of fear of others are good candidates to become controlled by someone who likes to control others.

Many times people who suffer from poor self-esteem allow themselves to be controlled by someone who promises to show them love or acceptance. They allow themselves to be manipulated like a puppet on a string. They are afraid to break the string because they are fearful of losing the attention they receive from the controller. They fear loneliness and the feeling of being rejected.

Then there are those who, because of emotional hurts, become controllers and manipulators themselves. I was like that at one time in my life. When I married, because of my past hurts I had a very hard time submitting to my husband in the Lord, as the Bible teaches (see Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18). I was afraid if I submitted to him and allowed him to exercise any control over me, he would hurt me. I always tried to stay in control of every situation due to the fear of being taken advantage of.

Dave kept telling me, "Joyce, I'm not going to hurt you! Don't you understand that I love you and that the decisions I make are made with your best interest in mind? But for a long time I couldn't see that. I couldn't imagine anybody caring enough for me to make decisions that would benefit me in any way. I thought if I allowed him to exercise any degree of control over my life, he would take advantage of me and do what was best for him, not for me. There are people who will do that, but Dave was not one of them. It is not right for us to punish everyone for what one bad person may have done to us in the past. I finally had to make a decision to trust and just believe G.o.d would vindicate me if people treated me unjustly.

We tend to bring our past wounds into our new relationships. One of the things G.o.d wants to do for us is help us learn to function in the new relationships we have developed, rather than ruin them because of the bad past experiences. We must approach every day as a new day with new opportunities. We must choose to let go of the past because our future has no room for the disappointment of the past. To go on we must let go!

Many people who are hurt inside develop addictive behaviors-alcoholism, drug addictions, food addictions, spending addictions, and on and on. If you suffer from any of these types of bondages, G.o.d wants to heal you. He wants to heal you from a sense of unworthiness, from shame and self-hatred and self-rejection, from addictive behaviors, from supersensitivity and fear and the labor of trying to be perfect in your own strength. G.o.d can heal you everywhere you hurt! One time the Lord showed me, "Joyce, I'm not nearly as hard to please as people think I am." G.o.d does not require you and me to be perfect immediately; He just wants us to keep growing. If we could be perfect, it would not have been necessary for G.o.d to send Jesus, the Perfect Sacrifice, for us. G.o.d has the marvelous ability to love us in the midst of our imperfections so why not just believe that and relax! When a person receives Jesus as his Savior and Lord He begins a work of healing in him. He does it inside and it shows on the outside. For example, the more we know G.o.d loves us, the more confident we will be in all our dealings with other people. If we have fear in our hearts, it always shows up in some way. Even if we pretend we are afraid of nothing, it always comes out. It is very important that you understand you are on a journey and will not completely reach your destination until your time here on earth is over and you go to heaven to live with G.o.d there for eternity. The Bible says when He calls us home we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Anything still wrong with us at that point will be instantly fixed (see 1 Corinthians 15:52). But until then we just need to keep our eyes on Jesus and sincerely do the best we can every day and trust G.o.d with our whole hearts. No matter how you feel, G.o.d is working in you and bringing you into a place of wholeness. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost and that includes everything the devil has stolen from us. Don't look at your journey as a burden, but as an exciting opportunity to reach new heights every single day you live.

G.o.d does not require you and me to be perfect immediately; He just wants us to keep growing.

CHAPTER 69.

Your Answer Is Under Your Nose There is no subject in the Bible we should take more seriously than the mouth-the words we speak. I do not believe anyone can live in victory without being well informed concerning the power of words. The mouth can be used to bring blessing or destruction not only to our own lives, but also to the lives of others. Proverbs 18:21 states, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life]."

The mouth can be used to bring blessing or destruction not only to our own lives, but also to the lives of others.

If you are dealing with problems, your answer may be right under your nose. At least a major part of it could be. Usually when we have mountains of problems in our lives we talk about them, but G.o.d's Word instructs us to talk to them, as we see in a pa.s.sage when Jesus said that we are to speak to our mountain in faith, commanding it to be lifted up and thrown into the sea (Mark 11:23, 24). This is a radical statement and one that deserves some study.

First of all, what do we say to the mountains in our lives? It is obvious we are not to hurl our will at them, but the will of G.o.d, and His will is His Word.

In Luke 4 when Jesus was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He answered every trial with the Word of G.o.d. He repeatedly said, "It is written," and quoted Scriptures that met the lies and deceptions of the devil head on. Many of us have a tendency to try this for a while, but when we do not see quick results, we stop speaking the Word to our problems and return to speaking our feelings, which is probably what got us into trouble to begin with.