What God Feels

Yes, God Is Emotional Over You

God feels, and if you ever doubt that, then among the loads of Biblical evidence to the affirmative you should consider, most of all, just look at Jesus. He is the visible image of the invisible God, and what we see in Jesus is a God who has a wide range of emotions. God the Son cried, was angry, expressed wild joyfulness, and felt deep compassion for the hurts and needs of people. Yes, God feels—and he feels quite deeply for you!

The Journey: Mark 8:2

I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat.

Does God have feelings? Does he feel sadness, compassion or hurt for the things that make people cry? Does he ever feel happy and laugh at the funny things people do? Does he swell with pride, brag about his kids, delight when they come for a visit? Does he feel all these emotions over me?

I am on pretty sure Scriptural grounds in answering “yes” to the above questions. Yes, God feels, and among the loads of Biblical evidence to the affirmative, all you have to do is look at Jesus, the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15, NLT), to see that God has a wide range of emotions. God the Son cried, was angry, expressed wild joyfulness, and felt deep compassion for the hurts and needs of people. Yes, God is emotional. And we humans, who were made in the image of God, had to get our emotional capacity from somewhere; we came by it supernaturally.

In the story of Jesus feeding the 4,000, this outstanding miracle arose out of the concern and compassion the Lord had on the people who had been hanging around, listening to his teaching, waiting to be touched, hoping for a miracle, for three days. They were so hungry to encounter God that they had neglected their physical appetites. And since Jesus was about to send them home, he was worried that they would become faint along the way. So he arranged for one of the greatest impromptu lunches of all time, and the crowds left happy and full.

Jesus felt for them—he feels for you, too. So does his Father. And though you might think that is pretty common knowledge, in truth, that is not how most of the rest of the world sees it. You see, for most of our history, man has viewed the universe as dangerous and the gods as hostile. The gods didn’t care about humans and they certainly gave no thought to serving them—humans existed to serve and please the gods, not vice versa.

G.E. Lessing, an 18th century scholar from Germany said if he had one question to ask the gods, it would be, “Is this a friendly universe?” You can be certain that this universe is indeed a friendly, perfectly safe place for you because of your Father’s closeness, care and competence. Jesus said so, and he showed so! Both the Father and the Son teamed up to prove it. As the Apostle Paul said in Romans 8:32,

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

If you ever wonder if Gods feels—either for you, or for the rest of the world—just take another look at that cross where the Father sacrificed his Son. You will never again doubt how much God feels for you. As R.A. Torrey said,

We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem so small to Him who sits on the circle of the earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love.

Now, doesn’t that make you feel better!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, you feel my pain, you know my disappointment, you see my distress. You also swell with joy in my victories, dance with delight over me as your child, and move all of creation to give me the delight of my heart as it is centered in you. Thank you for carrying me close to your heart.

God, Help Me To Constantly Cast My Cares To You

52 Simple Prayers for 2018

It has been said that the only person whose problems are truly all behind him is a school bus driver. The truth is, everybody “gots” problems—lots of them! There are more than enough worries, anxieties and challenges to go around in this day and age. But that doesn’t mean you have to live life paralyzed by your problems. As Martin Luther said, just because the birds fly over your head doesn’t mean you have to let them build a nest in your hair. Nor do you have allow your problems to constantly weigh you down. God didn’t create you to live that way. So rather than holding onto them, cast them onto God. That’s what the Apostle Peter said. Cast all your cares on him. All of them! Big ones, for sure. And even the little ones. He will take them all, because he cares that much for you!

A Simple Prayer To Leave Worries Behind:

God, here they are—all of my problems. They are too big for me. I refuse to stay up late worrying over them one more night. Since you’re up anyway, why don’t you worry about them for me. (Of course, you don’t worry, since you are greater, wiser and stronger than anything that challenges me!) So I give them to you, and in exchange, by faith, I will rest in your care and receive your peace.

The Emotional God

Reflect:
John 11:1-57

“When Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. ‘Where have you put him?’ he asked them. They told him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, ‘See how much he loved him!’” (John 11:33-36, NLT)

Jesus felt things very deeply—and I am so glad he did. Jesus was fully human, yet fully God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. His whole incarnational purpose was to live among us (John 1:15) in order to bring God close (Isaiah 7:14), reveal who God is and what God is like to us, his creatures (Colossians 1:15,19-20), and through his redeeming sacrifice bring us back into a right relationship with our Father and Creator (Colossians 1:21-22).

In coming to Planet Earth to reveal God and redeem man, we do not find in Jesus an uncaring, distant, emotionless Deity, we find one who knew full well what is was like to be one of us. Therefore, he was the perfect bridge between the Divine and the fallen. In his earthly journey, God the Son experienced—and expressed—a wide range of emotions that were uniquely human. Just in John 11 and 12 alone, we see several occasions where humanity “leaked” from Deity:

He got angry and upset: “When Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.” (John 11:33, NLT)

He expressed unmitigated grief and the free flow of tears: “Then Jesus wept.” (John 11:35, NLT)

He refused to be pacified when an issue was unresolved: “Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. ‘Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.’” (John 11:38, NLT)

He got fed up: “Jesus replied, ‘Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial.’” (John 12:7, NLT)

He felt concern over the future: “Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!” (John 12:27, NLT)

In other Gospel accounts, we discover Jesus expressing other quite human emotion:

He was frustrated with his disciples’ thick-headedness: “Jesus asked them, ‘Are you still so dull?’” (Matthew 15:16, NLT)

He was overcome by the weight of responsibility: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mark 14:34, NLT)

He felt irrepressible joy: “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.’” Luke 10:21, NLT)

Jesus, the perfect God-man, was able to feel things uniquely human: Sorrow, anger, frustration, spiritual exhaustion, and a tremendous capacity for joy. But are those emotions uniquely human? No, in truth, they are completely Divine. These feelings are not of just human origin; rather, they are feelings that originate within the very being of a feeling God, who has simply placed them within the genetic code of that part of his creation he holds most dear—human beings, which includes you and me.

The fact that you and I feel simply reminds us that our Creator feels. What that means, among other things, is that we belong to a caring, compassionate God. God the Father feels—he even dances over you with delight (Zephaniah 3:17); God the Son definitely feels, as we have just seen; God the Holy Spirit feels—he can be grieved and pleased (Ephesians 4:30, Galatians 6:8). That is good news, because it gives him an unfettered capacity to relate to our feelings and us great confidence to come before a caring, understanding God to express our deepest feelings. Hebrews 4:15-16 says,

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Yes, God feels. Jesus clearly demonstrated that. So come confidently to a caring God to pour out your deepest, most inmost feelings. His great promise is that you can exchange your feelings for his mercy, your emotions for his grace, your tears for his comfort, your fears for his strength and anything else you are carrying, good or bad, you can turn over to a Father who can definitely relate.

Now that is something you can feel really good about!

“Spiritual experience by definition is an internal awareness that involves strong emotion in response to the truth of God’s Word, amplified by the Holy Spirit and applied by Him to us personally.” ~John MacArthur

Reflect and Apply: This present moment might be a good time to take God up on the incredible offer he made to you in Hebrews 4:16!

The Emotional God

Essential 100—Read:
John 11:1-57

“When Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. ‘Where have you put him?’ he asked them. They told him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, ‘See how much he loved him!’” (John 11:33-36, NLT)

Jesus felt things very deeply—and I am so glad he did.  Jesus was fully human, yet fully God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. His whole incarnational purpose was to live among us (John 1:15) in order to bring God close (Isaiah 7:14), reveal who God is and what God is like to us, his creatures (Colossians 1:15,19-20), and through his redeeming sacrifice bring us back into a right relationship with our Father and Creator (Colossians 1:21-22).

In coming to Planet Earth to reveal God and redeem man, we do not find in Jesus an uncaring, distant, emotionless Deity, we find one who knew full well what is was like to be one of us. Therefore, he was the perfect bridge between the Divine and the fallen. In his earthly journey, God the Son experienced—and expressed—a wide range of emotions that were uniquely human. Just in John 11 and 12 alone, we see several occasions where humanity “leaked” from Deity:

He got angry and upset: “When Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.” (John 11:33, NLT)

He expressed unmitigated grief and the free flow of tears: “Then Jesus wept.”  (John 11:35, NLT)

He refused to be pacified when an issue was unresolved:  “Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. ‘Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.’” (John 11:38, NLT)

He got fed up:  “Jesus replied, ‘Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial.’” (John 12:7, NLT)

He felt concern over the future: “Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!” (John 12:27, NLT)

In other Gospel accounts, we discover Jesus expressing other quite human emotion:

He was frustrated with his disciples’ thick-headedness: “Jesus asked them, ‘Are you still so dull?’” (Matthew 15:16, NLT)

He was overcome by the weight of responsibility: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mark 14:34, NLT)

He felt irrepressible joy: “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.’” Luke 10:21, NLT)

Jesus, the perfect God-man, was able to feel things uniquely human: Sorrow, anger, frustration, spiritual exhaustion, and a tremendous capacity for joy.  But are those emotions uniquely human?  No, in truth, they are completely Divine. These feelings are not of just human origin; rather, they are feelings that originate within the very being of a feeling God, who has simply placed them within the genetic code of that part of his creation he holds most dear—human beings, which includes you and me.

The fact that you and I feel simply reminds us that our Creator feels.  What that means, among other things, is that we belong to a caring, compassionate God.  God the Father feels—he even dances over you with delight (Zephaniah 3:17); God the Son definitely feels, as we have just seen; God the Holy Spirit feels—he can be grieved and pleased (Ephesians 4:30, Galatians 6:8). That is good news, because it gives him an unfettered capacity to relate to our feelings and us great confidence to come before a caring, understanding God to express our deepest feelings. Hebrews 4:15-16 says,

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Yes, God feels. Jesus clearly demonstrated that.  So come confidently to a caring God to pour out your deepest, most inmost feelings.  His great promise is that you can exchange your feelings for his mercy, your emotions for his grace, your tears for his comfort, your fears for his strength and anything else you are carrying, good or bad, you can turn over to a Father who can definitely relate.

Now that is something you can feel really good about!

“Spiritual experience by definition is an internal awareness that involves strong emotion in response to the truth of God’s Word, amplified by the Holy Spirit and applied by Him to us personally.” ~John MacArthur

Reflect and Apply: This present moment might be a good time to take God up on the incredible offer he made to you in Hebrews 4:16!