Mastering Your Emotions

Emotions
Emotions – we all have them; unfortunately, there are times when they have us! Wouldn’t you like to get control of them rather than them having control of you? You certainly can. But how?

Mastering Life
This whole teaching stems from the revelation that we were designed by God to master life, rather than it mastering us—that we were made in the image of God to reflect His power, His love and His authority in this earth. It starts in our emotions, or our soul, because God says in 3 John 2 “I wish above all things that you would prosper and be in health, EVEN AS YOUR SOUL PROSPERS.” So as your soul goes, the rest of your life follows.

God created us to be in control as He is. However, in our failure to control our own self, we attempt to control others in order to feel the superiority that God created us to be in. Though, perhaps, currently displaced, it is God’s will for us to get back on top in this life—to reign in this life. Mastering our emotions doesn’t mean not having emotions. God designed us to express passion and emotion; but sin, the devil and the curse have perverted these emotions so that they will hurt us and hurt others around us.

Men, Women and Emotions
While women identify with this subject easily, this is by no stretch of the imagination for women only. The fact is, women are blessed to be more aware of their emotions (as your husband may attest, if you are married!)

Men have as many emotions as women. We need to get rid of the notion that women show their emotion more than men. The fact is, that they show different emotions than men, but not more—perhaps simply more recognizable.

Just because you’re a man, you may think, “It’s women that are more emotional than men.” Well, I am going to show you in the Word of God that that’s not true. It’s not true that women are more emotional than men. Women have more of a tendency to be expressive outwardly of their emotions; whereas men have more of a tendency to internalize their emotions and become more quiet and become more melancholy. When they’re emotional, they may become more somber. Now, a woman might have an outburst of her emotions verbally, but a man’s outburst of emotions is a grunt or a sigh.

The Sand Box
Have you ever noticed boys and girls playing? If you’ve ever noticed a boy and a girl playing like when we were kids, playing in a sand box. And girls, they’ll be in the sand box and they will be talking. They’ll say, “I’m going to play in the sand and build a little neat sand castle, and then I’m going to get the little boys to come and you know help me build this sand castle… and then when I get done with this I’m going to get all clean and play with my little dollies and I can’t wait to get home and play with my dollies.” What is the boy’s response? He grabs a truck and goes “vroom, vroom, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmmm.”

Then the little girl taps her friend and goes, “Little boy, are you listening to me?” And he responds, “Hmmm?” He hardly talks. Girls learn to vocalize themselves a whole lot earlier than boys do. Sometimes boys never do! Some boys never learn to express themselves but they’re always grunting.

A wife says, “What do you want for dinner tonight honey?” Husbands response: “mmhmm” (Translation: “I don’t know.”) Wife: “Why I was thinking about making spaghetti. Would that interest you?” “Mmhmm.” (Translation: “fine with me.”)

Men express themselves differently than women, but both men and women, when they are not born again, are under the curse of being controlled by their emotions. As believers, we are redeemed from this curse; however, we need to learn how to walk out of being emotionally-ruled people.

The “C” Word: Control
The word “control” is one of the most misunderstood words in our language. It usually has negative connotations; yet, its essence is determined by who is actually the one in control.

There has been a lot of Christian and secular writing that condemns the idea of a “controlling” personality. And rightly so, as it usually describes insecure people trying to control others in order to feel powerful or feel value.

People that try to control others are people who cannot control themselves—and usually this is found in the failure to control our emotions. It’s important for us to deal with the root causes of our problems at the onset so we can walk in victory and truly be free.

We all need to feel we are in control. There is nothing necessarily wrong with being in control. The issue is: what it is we are supposed to be in control of. When we get a hold of our thoughts, then we’ll have control of our emotions. When we get a hold of our emotions, we will have peace and security on the inside, eliminating our need to control others.

I want to show you that if you can control your emotions, you can absolutely do anything. Proverbs 16:32 says, “Better is a man who can rule his spirit (emotions, attitudes) than one who can capture a city.” Look at how powerful a person actually is who can control or “master” his/her emotions. He/she is more powerful than an army. In contrast, the person who is under the control of emotions is like a person overtaken by an army. But God made us to be in control—or better said: to walk in our authority.

1. You can have control.
2. You can be in control.
3. Control is a Godly force designed by God to direct circumstances where God has designed them to go.
4. Uncontrolled and unyielded emotions lead to controlling the wrong thing: people.

If you are interested in my CD teaching series, “Mastering Your Emotions,” visit the Changinglives Bookstore at: 

http://www.cylbookstore.com/topics/emotionseries/detail/Product_Catalog_15.htm

Gregory Dickow