The Spiritual Value of Human Emotions
Greetings, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to
explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly
Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This
morning we seek to understand the spiritual value of human emotions.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Spiritual Value of Human Emotions
"And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops
of blood, falling down to the ground. " Luke, Chapter 22, Verse 44.
Brothers and sisters, we know that human emotions range from the profoundly sorrowful to the
heights of ecstatic joy. We know to have these emotions is human, but what is the spiritual value of
having them? Why do we react to certain situations with different feelings? Human emotions are
important because of the role they play in our spiritual life.
We know that spiritual beings have most emotions except fear, which plays such a large part in the
life of the average human being. When choosing good over evil, we must have the contrast of evil--
either actual or potential--to stimulate the choice of goodness. Without it, we would not have any
framework for choosing that which is good.
Choosing moral, ethical, and religious values carry profound consequences, for ultimately it
determines whether we will be eternal beings or a transient phenomenon in the universe. The Father
loves his children and would not lose any, but the prerogatives of free will leave the decision of
survival to us. And though the Father does not choose for us, he does everything consistent with our
free will choice to save us. He has given us his spirit and created us in his image with the capacity
to experience truth, beauty, and goodness and consequently divine love. God is love. He has also
given us the capacity to appreciate these three great manifestations of his divinity. When these are
united in love, there is no greater spiritual reality that can be experienced by mortal man.
It has been said that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. You can make
him thirsty though. The Father has placed in man a hunger and a thirst that cannot be satisfied unless
he partakes of the bread of goodness and water of truth. Once taken, there results a satiety of beauty.
The experience of love motivates the mortal to overcome all handicaps and difficulties that stand in
the way of achieving divine perfection. The full admission of divine love into the human heart
compels that heart to do any and all things that are necessary to achieve divine perfection.
We should learn to appreciate the things of the divine, to enjoy divine values and meanings, but we
must choose them. To choose them, we must have a potential alternative. The values of goodness
reside in the Father's spirit; the temporal values of evil reside in our souls. The challenge and task
is for us to choose the divine values over human ones. Emotional responses to this choosing are
factors. Nothing succeeds like success.
If we lived a life without any other persons to interact with, we would not know that we were lonely.
We cannot miss what we don't know. The fact of other individuals living in our environment and an
inherent social cohesion create the potential reality of being lonely. We do not have to be lonely to
appreciate what loneliness means. If we never knew unhappiness, we could not really appreciate the
value of happiness. If we never knew depression, we could never know what if feels like to be happy,
and the same thing applies to all the human emotions that carry a negative connotation. When we
choose evil rather than good, consequences of those decisions are vested in negative emotions, which
under normal circumstances should propel us to choose good, the consequences which are vested
in positive emotions. So we see that having a healthy emotional state is associated with choosing
good over the evil since things like self worth, self esteem, a sense of well being all increase with
choosing good over evil.
As we continue to choose the values of good that are presented to us by the divine spirit, we build
up a positive sense of who we are. Choosing good over evil bathes us with positive emotions.
Without the alternative we would not be able to choose good. Our very nature makes this so. Without
feelings, reality does not seem real. And though we are not always in a position to really appreciate
the positive feelings associated with choosing good over evil, in the mature individual the positive
feelings are associated with positive choices--that is, choosing good over evil. And though feelings
should not be the chief determiner in making decisions, the mature anticipator of choosing good can
look forward to positive emotions associated with his choice. Feelings keep the playing field of life
level since there are real emotional consequences to choosing or mis-choosing. In the fullness of
time, these human emotions will be glorified, even as they were glorified in Jesus.
This concludes today's message on understanding the spiritual value of human emotions. We hope
you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Spiritual Value of Human Emotions
