Emotion Under Control

"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18)

Peter and Paul join in urging us to practice and display the loftiest fruits of the Spirit of God with the Spirit Himself in control of our emotions and our affections, our worship and our praise. Yes, brothers, the Spirit will make the believing child of God generous but He will never make him silly! The Spirit will warm the inner life of the Christian's being but he will never lead him to do the things that would cause him to hang his head in shame afterward!

I say, "Thank God" for the kind of enduring joy which comes to the believer whose emotional life is in keeping of the Spirit. I stand with the dear child of God whose reason is sanctified and who refuses to be swept from his mooring in the Word of God either by the latest popular vogue in religion fad or the ascendence of the most recent sensational personality in gospel circles.

Even the Holy Spirit does not take away our mental poise or expect us to surrender our common sense and will or yield ourselves to any hypnotic influence.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Too Busy to be Gloomy

"Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ... Wherein ye greatly rejoice" (1 Peter 1:5-6)

The life of the normal, believing child of God can never become a life of gloom and pessimism. In every age we will have some people whose concept of Christianity is a kind of gloomy resignation to the inevitable. But it is the Holy Spirit who has promised the ability for the Christian to rejoice in God's promises day by day.

Peter states it as a paradox: the obedient Christian greatly rejoices even in the midst of great heaviness, trials and suffering. God's people know that things here are not all they ought to be, but they are not spending any time in worrying about it. They are too busy rejoicing in the gracious prospect of all that will take place when God fulfills all of His promises to His redeemed children!

Whatever else trouble is in the world for, it is
here for this good purpose: to develop strength ...
Every day we are blessed with new opportunities
for the development of strength of soul.

What harm can happen to him who knows that
God does everything, and who loves beforehand
everything that God does?

~A. W. Tozer~