A L M A C I A S

ARE WE WALKING BY FAITH OR BY EMOTIONS?

Sometimes I wonder what has happened to many Christians who once believed that the Word of God was given to us to guide us in this world all the days of our lives. We are living in a world that is beginning to wonder if God really meant what He said in the scriptures. Somehow people are beginning to lose the conviction they once had and are exchanging it for emotional justification of almost anything. We hear of people trying to make it easy on those who come to the Gospel by letting them stay in the situation in which they were when they heard the Gospel, even if that situation was one that was not approved by God. Those who do such believe it to be a harsh thing to tell those who find themselves in an unscriptural marriage that they cannot stay in that situation. They argue that the non-Christian is not amenable to the law of Christ until he has become a Christian. What does the Word of God say regarding this matter?

We read in the scriptures that ignorance is no excuse for sin. God will not be as severe on someone who sinned in ignorance as one who sinned in spite of knowing full well what he was doing, but nevertheless God will punish both sinners ­ those who sinned in ignorance, as well as those who sinned knowingly. God would not be God if He would allow the guilty to go free. That is why we are exhorted so many times to study and know the scriptures, so that we will not be like children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. (Eph. 4:14) To let our emotions dictate to us what is right and what is wrong, rather than the Word of God, is to put ourselves in danger of being tossed to and fro by whatever our emotions tell us.

Another matter that we must always remember is that in the day of judgement, it will not be our emotions which will be used to judge us, but the Word of God. (Jn. 12:48) Why is it that we sometimes set aside the Word of God as the standard for what is right and wrong? I have noticed that this usually happens when people are trying to either justify things they are doing or planning to do which are condemned by the Word of God, or something being done by some family member or friend which is condemned by God. Whatever the case, our emotions do not determine what is right and what is wrong; the Word of God is our standard. Let us go back to the time when we still had conviction in the Word.