I Thessalonians 5:25 "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be  preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"

 In the passage above from I Thessalonians 5 the apostle Paul prays for the saints at Thessalonia that their entire being -spirit, soul, and body-would be preserved and sanctified. What exactly does this mean and how does it apply to our emotions?

The word "sanctified" in Scripture means to "set apart unto God for His exclusive use". When Paul prays for our entire being to be sanctified unto God he is saying that our entire being, all that we are is to be set apart and used for God's purpose and God's purpose alone. All that we are is to be used in service to Him. All that we are is to serve Him.

This idea and concept - that we are to serve God with all that we are- is also echoed in Deuteronomy 6:5,

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might"

We are to love God with all that we are! Now in the Bible to love God is to serve God, to oby Him. Jesus said in John 14:23 "If a man love me he will kep my words". To love God with all that we are then is to serve and obey Him with all that we are.

This means you and I are to obey God with our thoughts, our wills, our body - and our emotions!

"Our emotions?!"

Yes! Our emotions!

Now I know you are thinking "Are you sure about this Mike?"

I'm sure! Let's keep studying this.

Serving and Obeying God with our Emotions

Deuteronomy 6:5 tells us that we are to love God "with all our hearts". Now in theScriptures the heart refes to the place of our thinking, percieving, understanding, deciding and feeling. The heart, in the Bible, is the place and source of our emotions. To love God with all the heart is to obey God  with your mind, your will, AND your emotions!

Does the Bible support this idea of loving, serving and obeying God with your emotions?

You bet!

Psalms 100:2 "Seve the Lord with gladness (or joy)!" Here we are told to obey God with Joy.

In Psalms 1:2 we read of the blessed man whose "...delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night" The word here for delight in Hebrew is chaphets and means "a passionate desire for an object that turns one's heart towards that object to possess it"

The blessed man spoken of in Psalms1:2 has a great, passionate desire for the word of God that motivates and moves him to meditate upon it day and night. His spiritual practice of meditating and studying God's word is motivated by passionate desire and emotion. He is serving God with his emotions and desires!

Still not convinced? Okay let's look at the New Testament. In I Peter 2:2 we are told

"Like new born babes DESIRE the sincere milk of the word that you grow thereby"

We are to actively desire the word of God, i.e., spiritual things. The word translated as desire from the Greek is a word that means "to long for, to intensely crave the possession of". Just as new born babies intensely desire and crave the milk of thier mothers so we to are to passionately desire and crave the word of God and the things of God! We are to passionately desire love, joy, peace, forgiveness, holy and righteous living. Why? Because what we passionately desire we pursue, we seek after.

God wants our passions to serve Him!

And this is what a sanctifed emotion is. It is setting our emotions apart unto God for His exclusive use! It is serving and obeying God with all of our emotions, feelings and desires!

Sanctified emotions means that your emotions work for you and support you in obeying God rather than working against you.  It means knowing HOW to direct your emotions towards righteousness and obedience and away from sin and disobedience.

The Original Purpose of Our Emotions

This idea of setting our emotions apart to God for His exclusive use (what I am calling sanctifying your emotions) speaks to the original intent and purpose of our emotions; that is, why God created us with emotions in the first place.

In Gensis 1:26-27 we are told that mankind was created in the image and likeness of God. To be created in God's image and likeness means that we are created to be His repesentatives in the earth.

As his image and likeness we are created for Him, we serve His purpose. This means that all that we are, all that He created within us, He put within us to help us fulfill our created purpose. And again this includes our emotions.

The english word "emotion" comes from the word "exmovere". Exmovere is composed of two words "ex" which mean "out"; and "movere" which means "to move". Exmovere means "to move out". This gives us insight into why we have emotions. The purpose of emotions is to move us, to motivate action.

That is why God gave us emotions. They are to move and motivate us to action! And haven't you already found that to be true? Don't you find yourself moved by your emotions (come on be honest!).

God intended us to be moved and motivated by our emotions. That is one of the primary reasons we have them. They are supoosed to move us and motivate us. That is their created purpose.

And that is a good thing! In Gensis 1:31 after God has created all things (including man) we read

"And God saw everything that He had made and behold it was very good..."

All of God's creation was good! All of it! That includes man and everything that was created in man.

And this includes our emotions. They are good and they are to motivate us and move us to be His representatives, to be His image and likeness in the earth. They are to motivate us and help move us toward holy, and righteous behavior. Or as Augustine, an early church theologian said,

"Emotions are the feet of the soul. They either move us closer to God or carry us farther from Him, but without them we will go no where"

Our emotions are part of the tools God has given us with which to serve Him. Emotions are not just to be resisted (we will talk about this later) and ignored. They are to be actively engaged in our service and obedience to God.

In Part two of this article we will talk about WHY we need to sanctify our emotions and the difference between lusts of the flesh and our emotions.

Stay tune!

Mike Davis Th.D