Hi all,
When Barb and I were dating (we were 15 & 16) she soon became a regular at our house. Though we lived 4 miles apart (6.4 km) and in a different school district she thought nothing of riding her bicycle or driving to my house after school where we (mom, me, 2 brothers and 1 sister) lived in a country neighborhood. 
 
This particular day our class at high school was holding a bake sale the next day to raise funds for something, and I was making cupcakes to help the effort. As Barb remembers it my mom was back in her office working on the books for her work, my brothers and sister were off doing other things, and I was alone in the kitchen. 
 
I had gotten a box mix and had the batter ready to pour into the paper cups for the cupcakes. That was when Barb walked in - as I said by that time she was already practically part of our family so she just walked in freely and came into the kitchen. What she saw when she entered the kitchen stopped her in her tracks.
 
I had gotten out a cookie sheet and lined up all the paper cups in neat rows on the cookie sheet, and was just about to pour the batter into the first cup - and Barb says, "John. What you are doing?" I said "My class is having a bake sale tomorrow so I'm making cupcakes." She said something like "Really? What do you think is going to happen when you pour that batter into those cups?" 
 
I really thought that was a stupid question as it was obvious I was baking cupcakes! Rather than stopping me (this should have been a clue to future interactions between us) she said, "Why don't you go ahead and pour one." I was suspicious of her grin and obvious enjoyment of what I thought was nothing more than watching her big strong boyfriend bake. Ohhhh how wrong I was. I was so ignorant and innocent I didn't know I was being set up. 
 
You know what happened next - I hope you do at least - as I poured the batter into the first cup on the cookie sheet the paper flattened out and the batter enveloped the now flattened paper cup and went all over the cookie sheet, the counter and dripped onto the floor like lave flowing out of a volcano. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how women got those paper cups to stand up to the pressure of the batter. Maybe the batter solidified quickly at the first sign of the heat of the oven I thought to myself. 
 
I don't recall seeing cupcake support things around the kitchen that would obviously be needed to make the paper stand up to the batter- maybe mom used some sort of semi-circular form to wrap around the cups. Maybe I could get some aluminum foil to wrap tightly around the paper - all these thoughts went through my naive brain in a matter of seconds. What was I doing wrong?  
 
Barb stayed back watching the learning process. Oh wise 16 year old that she was, she was having fun with me like a cat bats a mouse around before going in for the kill. Finally she stepped in after I had carefully folded each fold in the next paper cup thinking helping the little creases in the paper might strengthen it, but as I started to pour cupcake #2 she mercifully stopped me and put me out of my misery. When I asked "What am I doing wrong?" then and only then did she say "You're supposed to put the paper cups into a cupcake tin." Of course I asked "What's a cupcake tin?" And then at nearly the top of my lungs "Mom! Do we have any cupcake tins?" 
 
Then I had 2 women laughing at me as mom came upon the scene and Barb through her tears of laughter explained what I was trying to do. THAT was the last time I tried to make cupcakes, and as I write this I'm 59 years old! 
 
What the Father taught me that day...
...was to be teachable. To take a step back from future projects before I ever started them to see the whole process from start to finish. To know each step along the way and know for certain what materials were needed, what each step would look like, and to be open to instruction and learning.  
 
I didn't know it then, but that lesson served me well in later years when assembling cheap furniture, fixing toilets, plumbing under the sink repair, installing a garbage disposal, wiring a ceiling fan, fixing a lawn mower, and other things around the house too numerous to mention. But there was a larger lesson to be learned.
 
Rule the house? 
As I said last week, my earth-dad wasn't in my life much at all in my teen years, so it was the Father God I looked to on how to be a (future) husband and father. One day after the cupcake incident of 1975 with thoughts of how to be a good husband on my mind, I was reading I Timothy 5:14:
 
"I want therefore the younger widows to marry, have children, rule the household, and give no occasion for the enemy..." 
 
I said, "Father! Paul said the wives were to rule the house, but I thought the husband was the head of the house!?!" Immediately He responded. "What is the house?" I thought for a second then replied, "The house is the physical building, the electrical, the plumbing, the walls, decorations, roof and so on." "Very well. And what is the home?"
 
Immediately my mind flashed to our friends the Harvey's. When I went to their house it always felt like love - peaceful, secure, and safe, so I responded; "The home is the intangible qualities of the house like love and peace and safety and feeling secure." He said, "Very well. The wife is the head of the house, and the husband the head of the home. Can you understand that?"
 
I said, "I've never heard that before. But that means if the wife is to rule the house as Paul said, then if the kitchen sink is clogged she can fix it herself. (I was genuinely trying to figure it out, but I admit I thought I had Him with that comment) He replied; "She may fix it herself, or she can delegate it to her husband. For if the house isn't in good working order the intangibles of the home will suffer. So it is up to the husband to make sure the intangible qualities you spoke of are maintained, meaning he would need to fix the sink if she doesn't want to do it. That's part of laying down your life for her." 
 
Ever since that teenage moment I've been keenly aware of my responsibility as head of the home as Barb is head of the house. That lesson served me well in our first month of marriage in our tiny apartment located at 20 Beechtree Court, in Charlotte, North Carolina. The kitchen trash bin was full, and of course the trash container is part of the house. Barb stated the obvious: "The trash can is full. You need to empty it." I said, "You topped it off; you empty it." She said "No. That's your job, I'm not going to empty it." 
 
The first rule if you want to get out of a hole is to stop digging that hole. 
I didn't know that then, so I said, "In my house whoever topped off the trash can was the one who had to empty it." She replied, "In my house my dad always emptied the trash." That's when I stopped digging by remembering the Father's lesson above. I've been emptying the trash ever since because...if the house isn't working properly and in good order, the home will not have those intangible qualities of love, peace, security and safety. 
 
Many people enter into relationships for what the other person can do for them. How many marriages fail, friendships fail, careers fail, because people are entering into a relationship not for what they can give to the workplace or friendship or marriage, but what that spouse, that friend, that job can do for them? 
 
I wanted to give those cupcakes for the good cause, but I needed teaching on how to do it - my heart was in the right place but my method was wrong. The fact is, human nature judges others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our motive. And the unteachable person demands they be judged by their motives - they don't want anyone to correct them as to method, they just scream out for someone to see their good heart, their good motive. But we must be teachable as to our actions.
 
Relationships are built not only on motive, but action. God so loved the world...but what if He stopped there? What if His motive was for us, what if He loved us...but that is all we knew of HIm? It is the last half of that verse that made a difference in our lives: "...that He gave His only begotten Son..." John 3:16  He loved, so He gave. Simple.
 
Motive, action, teachability. Maintain or repair the intangible qualities in your relationships. A person may have to build a considerable track record of success to restore the trust he or she once had. That trust is part of the intangibles. A person may have to learn not to lie against or abuse nor speak ill of in public the person they say is their friend, spouse, or neighbor, co-worker - and it will take time to build a record of right words and actions. 
 
BUT...let our actions revolve around the intangible qualities that make that house a home, that friendship more than a casual acquaintance. Work toward building up the fruit of the Spirit in a relationship, things such as love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, kindness...Love, so demonstrate that love, being teachable along the way...
 
Another story from the past next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
 

Hi all,
I think I've found a way to get out of housework - just mess up enough that Barb finally says, "Okay, okay, please, you always do it wrong, just let me do it from now on." 
Of course I don't try to get out of housework, nor do I try to mess up, it just comes naturally. 
 
As Barb has accurately observed, I use the washing machine like a trash can for clothes - I toss the dirty clothes in there until full over the course of a few days, hers and mine, and when full I just pour in detergent, shut the lid and do a load of laundry without a clue what clothes are in the machine. That explains why her red shirt was tossed in with my white underpants, a white t-shirt of mine, and some of her lightly colored things as well, turning everything a uniform color of pink. 
 
For a few days until we could buy new underwear I just hoped the Father ordered my steps enough that my mother's voice in my head telling me 'Always wear clean underwear in case you're in an accident' would be proven false, as beneath my jeans I was wearing hot pink underwear that I would not want any emergency room attendant to see. I had imaginations of being carried in on a stretcher calling out in desperation; 'I don't normally wear pink underwear, really I don't!' before passing out. That wasn't my first laundry offense, for by the time of the Great Pink Underpants Incident of 2014 we'd already been married 36 years or so. This was just the latest of offenses and the one that required new laundry rules. 
 
I seem to always think and often say to Barb (usually under my breath) the 'Man's Prayer' from Canada's The Red Green Show: "I'm a man. I can change. If I have to. I guess." And if I am really in trouble I fall back on the Red Green motto in pretend Latin: ""Quando omni flunkus moritati" (When all else fails, play dead)
 
So now that I am forbidden from washing any clothes of Barb's it makes my life easier. I still see the washing machine as the dirty clothes hamper - but now I just throw mine or Chris' in and ignore her pile of dirty clothes. Sometimes I look over at her pile and think; 'I can do her clothes without harming anything', and then I recognize that has to be from Satan and quickly rebuke any thought of doing her laundry. 
 
No one told me this when I was a kid!
Nobody sat me down and said in premarital counseling in 1978; "Son, when you get married you are committing yourself to a lifetime of personal growth, change, development as a person and in Christ. Don't think for a second you will change her and let not her think for a split second she will change you. You and Christ in both of you will change each other if you are both flexible, teachable, humble, transparent and honest, and willing to be stretched more ways than you can imagine. And part of that means there will come a day when you will have ruined enough clothes in the washing machine she will tell you that you are banned from washing her clothes. Go with it son, lay down your life for your wife and stay away from her laundry pile."
 
If Barb's pastor, Reverend Staton who married us, had said that to me I would have smiled broadly like a 10 year old child trying to be polite to a rocket scientist using technical terms to explain the velocity of a rocket leaving earth's atmosphere in relation to the pounds of thrust and the pull of gravity considering the weight of the rocket and altitude of orbit desired. Picture a big toothy grin and wide eyes in which there would be nothing behind them to signify intelligent life. That would have been me back then. 
 
I did it my way
When I gave my heart to the Lord when I was 16, no one told me I was signing up for a lifetime of constant change and personal growth. I thought of it as a sort of adventure, a great eternal explore, a brave new world in the kingdom of God, and first and foremost was that I had a Father again. 
 
But when Barb and I started dating and I led her to the Lord (she was 15, I was 16 years old) I experienced my first real challenge to change. It seems so simple now, but a few months into dating Barb said "You always ask me what I want to do and where I want to go, but no matter what I say we end up doing what you want to do and going where you want to go." I had to really and truly look down inside and examine myself and my history of decision making with her. I had to be brutally honest and humble and admit she was right. Where is THAT chapter and verse? Where wast THAT in any of our prayer and praise meetings of 1974 and 1975?
 
I learned for the first time that Barb is not one to make such an accusation unless she had the ammunition to back up her claim - with decision after decision recited to me, which meant for us at that tender young age date after date and meal after meal. No decisions more serious than that, but it helped each of us grow in Christ and together.
 
Decisions were like "I want to see x movie what do you want to see Barb?" She would respond "I would like to see Y movie" but then we would go see X movie which I could justify by ticket price, or the time the movie started, or we'd be out early enough to grab a bite to eat with our friends, or some well founded reason like that which I thought I was right for the overall, big picture view of the night. Up to that point I thought she saw what I saw of the big picture and how the night would flow perfectly. All she wanted was to see Y movie. The result was I thought I was making the decision for our greater good, but in reality she never got what she wanted. Ouch.
 
Fortunately I was growing in the Lord in other areas, so I had developed an attitude that every challenge in my life, even the challenge of a girlfriend I thought I was in love with, presented an opportunity to become more Christ-like. My earth-dad was out of the picture of my life in these matters so it was the heavenly Father who helped me work through the question if I was in love with her or not. 
 
When He asked me "Would you give up your life for her?" it caused deep introspection, even at that young age of 16 I realized one does not offer a light weight answer to a heavy weight question the Father God asks. After a few days of searching my heart, I told the Father "I can answer your question now. Yes. I would." I thought that would be that - I knew I was in love, yippee, yippee. But when He answered "Laying down your life for her may or may not mean in front of a firing squad, but it always means laying down your life in little ways for her every day. Your ideas, your plans, your thoughts, your priorities, serving and loving her as Christ does the church." It rocked my teenage world with the sudden realization of what saying "I love you" to her meant. I was signing up for a life time of change, and it scared me. 
 
And that is why NOT doing her laundry for her is laying down my life for her - no more pink clothes
When she made doing her laundry off-limits part of me wanted to react like that 16 year old kid who could explain the big picture that I saw and how having me help with her clothes (I could learn my lesson, really I could) would be the best big-picture decision I could make for us all. But the older and wiser me realized my big picture view meant nothing if her white and flowery unmentionables turned out pink when I did laundry. 
 
Friend, neighbor, co-worker, or spouse, loving your neighbor as yourself first and foremost means personal growth for us. As I so often say, anyone can say they are born again, but their righteousness remains unproven and unseen. God has therefore designed His righteousness in us to be proven within the frame work of relationships. And that starts at home. Another 'incident' from the life and times of John & Barb next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com 

Hi all,
I've long wondered how the Magi were able to look to the night sky and determine a king had been born in Israel. Many have looked at star maps from roughly the years 10BC to 1AD and come up with their own ideas of what this or that planet meant when it was in what constellation, and what those movements may have meant to the Magi. But no one really knows as I've read maybe 6 or 10 explanations. No one really knows what moved them to journey to Israel. 
 
Here is just one example, and it sets the stage for this series
I have a series complete with illustrated booklet detailing how the signs of the Zodiac originally told the gospel story called "Salvation Displayed in the Stars." It goes through the original meaning of each of the 12 signs and each sign's 3 accompanying constellations called 'decans' (deck-uns) which complement the message of the main constellation, and tells the gospel message. 
 
For instance the Zodiac starts with Virgo the virgin, and her 3 decans are Coma the infant, Centaurus the double natured one, and Bootes (Arcturus the Great Shepherd and Harvester). Virgo the virgin has an infant son called the 'desired one' who is double natured and grows to become a Shepherd and Harvester - you get the picture. 
 
Virgo is holding a branch upright in her right arm which signifies the many prophecies of Messiah being the branch of David, while in her left arm a head of grain is held down and low, showing He is also the seed that must die and be planted. The main star there is Spica. The star names in Virgo and her decans are even more remarkable, including Al Zimach, Al Azal, and Subilon, which mean respectively the shoot, the branch, the head of wheat...and on it goes.
 
September 23 alignment
And so we come to the 23 September alignment in Virgo. The talk of this alignment is it's timing at Rosh haShanah, with speculation of the rapture. They believe The Revelation 12:1-2 portrays the September 23 alignment:  "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she was with child and cried, travailing in birth, and about to be delivered."
 
In case you haven't heard: The way some see this fulfilled is that the sun will cross paths with Virgo's left shoulder and the moon with her left foot, which could be taken as her being clothed with the sun and the moon under (actually beside) her feet, while Jupiter is appearing to travel back and forth (up and down) her left side over the course of several months. Additionally, the nearby constellation of Leo (the lion stands for Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah as the conquerer) has the planets Mercury, Mars, and Venus in a straight line across it, and you can make out (at least) 12 stars/planets. 
 
Rosh haShanah, also called the Feast of Trumpets is the Jewish teaching of what we call the rapture, which Paul taught though if you don't understand it from his Jewish viewpoint of Rosh haShanah you'll misunderstand scripture. I have a teaching on Rosh haShanah available in our bookstore via cd or mp3 that goes into more detail.
 
My point here isn't to teach ancient astronomy nor on Rosh haShanah but to point out where out focus should be 
"But of the times and seasons brethren, you don't need me to write you. You yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night, and when they say 'Peace and safety', then sudden destruction will come upon them like birth pangs of a woman in labor, and they won't escape.
 
"But you brethren are NOT in darkness that His coming would be like a thief in the night to you. No, you are children of the light, children of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be serious about our faith....for God did not appoint us to wrath (the wrath to come)...therefore comfort one another and build each other up as you are doing..." II Thessalonians 5:1-11
 
From this passage we understand we can know the times and seasons, but anything about a specific day is speculation. Is speculation profitable? Not if it causes fear. Not if it causes people to forego living in the hope the rapture will rescue them from facing difficult situations. Not if it works people up to an emotional frenzy. 
 
In contrast to speculating on everything from blood moons to solar eclipses to alignment of stars and planets, we know we are in the times and seasons of the end based on 2 main scriptures that are set in stone and immovable: "And Jerusalem will be trodden down (controlled) by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled." and "I don't want you to be ignorant brethren of this mystery, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in." Luke 21:24, Romans 11:25
 
In Luke 21:24 Jesus is prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem which would happen in less than 40 years from His crucifixion, in the year 70. He said from that point on Jerusalem would be ruled by Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. In the 1967 war (June 5-10, 1967) Israel took control of Jerusalem, meaning it has been 50 years since that happened - we are 50 years into the time of the end of the Gentiles, such is the grace of the Father to gather in all He can. 
 
Paul said blindness to Jesus being their Messiah is on Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. Therefore when we see more and more Jewish people believing in Jesus we know the blindness is lifting - and that has been going on since roughly the mid 1960's, coinciding with Israel taking control of Jerusalem. So as more Jewish people are believing in Jesus as Messiah in ever increasing numbers, the time of the Gentiles is winding down even more so. 
 
This we know without the help of speculation about stars and planets. 
 
The Magi had the nation right, but had to be led by scripture to Bethlehem. (Matthew 2:1-8)
Let that sink in. These experts in true astronomy who learned from the stars and planets a king was born in Israel, were clueless as to where He was. Scripture gave them the location. Even if the stars and planets align, it is scripture that is the foundation, making anything celestial subject to scripture. 
 
And I'm sure someone somewhere is writing a book about the solar eclipse that just happened in the USA and the next one coming April 8, 2024 in 7 years, and how their paths mark an X right over the New Madrid fault (Easter is 31 March in 2024/ Passover 22 April, 2024) but any spiritual meaning to these things are speculation. 
 
I'm not saying there isn't a significance to all these things - I'm just saying they don't move me. The Person of the Living Word moves me. The written Word that proceeds from Him moves me. Any understanding I think I have or someone else has, must be made subject to the words of Jesus and Paul. I have Christ in me and He can tell me what He wants me to hear, stars 'out there' are interesting, but mean little even if they have spiritual meaning on September 23, 2017. It's not that I don't care, it's just that Christ is in me and my preference would be to be going full speed about the Father's business when the rapture happens, rather than waiting in spiritual neutral for the sound of the Last Trump. 
 
New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
 

Hi all,
I heard a joke the other day on an old TV show that I had not heard since my 6th grade teacher told it to us in an effort to get us to think 'outside the box' as we say - meaning to look for solutions beyond the obvious. 
 
The joke is this: Every week a Mexican boy would ride across the Mexican/US border on his bicycle with a sack over his shoulder. Each week he was stopped by the same US Border Agent who inspected the sack, only to find it each and every week filled with sand. This went on for many weeks until one day the Agent on a day off was spending an afternoon in Mexico, and happened to see the little boy. He asked the boy to tell him what he was doing riding back and forth like that with a sack of sand over his shoulder. The boy replied:
 
"I was smuggling bicycles." 
 
This is the way the devil works in our emotions - he gets us focused on the bag of sand while he smuggles his real purpose right into our lives - that thing screaming at us like fear, wrath, anger, arrogance, etc.
 
I could tell you story after story
Victims of those living by their emotions include most of us I would imagine. People regularly contact me about what to do with the friend who suddenly cut off their friendship and they have no clue why, or they cut off the friendship for some trivial reason. I've listed several experiences in the last couple of weeks, but the result is the innocent friend, family member, co-worker, fellowship church member, are hurt by the emotionally made decisions to kill friendships. 
 
Paul wrote to a bunch of emotionally led believers in his first letter to the body of Christ in Corinth, saying the fact they were caught up in strife, envy, and divisions reveals they are mere babies in Christ. He said in I Corinthians 3:3 they were carnal, living like un-born again people. He said at this point they should be eating spiritual meat, but they are unable to receive it for they remain babies because they are emotionally caught up in strife, envy and divisions. He told them if they continued they would be saved, but all they were brining with them to heaven would be wood, hay, and stable which would be burned up in judgement. 
 
Did you notice...
Jesus did not chase after the Rich Young Ruler when he turned away from Jesus' invitation to sell everything and come follow Him. Did you notice in John 6:66-67 when many disciples stopped following Him because they didn't understand His parable and what He meant when He spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, He didn't run after them? 
 
Jesus puts before us a decision to make, a fork in the road, a revelation internal about doing what is right or doing what we feel we want to do. Then He watches. Like Cain, He encourages us in our spirit man to do the right thing, to gain mastery over sin and our emotions - but He lets us make the decision.
 
When a friend behaves badly we must realize they must correct themselves. Meekly try to help, and if they repent and acknowledge their error and give us thanks for the wise counsel - praise God we've regained our friend. If not, they must walk it out and we are kicked to the sideline. No disaster is a single event, and it is true of life. 
 
Okay, back to Cain...let's start at the very beginning of this series
Even after Cain murdered his brother, the Lord came to him - get that - the Lord came to him and offered him the chance to be honest, asking: "Where is your brother Abel?"
Cain dug in his heels as we say, rather than acknowledge outright what he had done he responded with a lie and question: "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?" In the very next verse, in Genesis 4:10 the Lord tells Cain that He knows what he did - look at the graciousness of the Lord! And He is like that for us, continually trying to reach us in different ways, different angles, trying to get us to be honest with ourselves and Him.
 
The underlying theme of this series has been personal responsibility, for this is what the Lord continually pulls us back to - be honest and take responsibility for what you think, what you feel, what you decide in life. An emotional person refuses to be personally responsible for their lives - they lie to others in little 'white lies', harmless they think, yet we can see they are plainly lies. They lie to themselves using emotions out of control to mask their fear and refusal to take responsibility. 
 
You aren't a robot
Do not get the impression I am talking about being an emotionless robot, for that is not the case. Emotions have their place for it is by them we feel the facts that our intellect tells us. Our emotions therefore are to work in tandem with our intellect, each weighing against the other, but always our emotions are to be subject to the rightness of the Lord, whether we feel like it or not - we make our emotions submit to logic and trust. 
 
In I Samuel 30:1-6 David and his men come home to Ziklag only to find the city burned and every single person taken away captive. There wives and children were no where to be found, there wasn't a dead body in the city - and it says in v6 David's men wanted to kill him by stoning, but 'David encouraged himself in the Lord'. As you read Psalm 4 below realize David is talking to his men who want to kill him, trying to encourage them not to let their emotions take over, but to make them turn to the Lord.
 
David wrote Psalm 4 at this time, and it is a snapshot of how David came close to letting his emotions in this very emotional event almost take over. But it also shows him swing back to his faith and trust in the Lord, and in the end, the Lord showed them how to recover every single person. If he had let his emotions take over he never would have been in the position to receive the Lord's instruction for restoration. 
 
"Hear me when I call O God of my righteousness: You have enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. 
(Can you hear his desperation - his men are talking of killing him, his wife has been taken captive, he is afraid and alone - so he speaks to his men)
 
"O you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? Know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for Himself (their wives and children, and themselves if they remain true to the Lord). The Lord will hear when I call to Him. Stand in awe of Him and don't sin, commune with your own heart and rest on your bed and be still. Selah (stop, think on this)"
 
"Off the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. There are many that say 'Who will show us any good? Lord lift up the light of your face upon us! You have put gladness in my heart more so than at a time of great harvest of grain and wine. I will lay down in peace and sleep, for you Lord make me live in safety."
 
David and his men went on that emotional roller coaster, which was completely understandable, but they listened to their faith and brought their emotions under control, their thoughts and fears and worry under control and submitted to faith and trust in the Lord - and as David noted, he had peace. Allow yourself that emotion, but don't be like Cain who chose to live by his emotion and ended up making a very bad decision. Be like David who in the midst of fear and worry found peace and restful sleep - because he trusted that God was faithful and would be faithful yet again in this situation. Amen! New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com

Hi all,
What do we do with friends and family whose decision making skills resemble those of a squirrel trying to cross the street? (And for some reason they involve us as a passenger on their emotional roller coaster ride.)
 
At what point if any do we try to be that person who breaks through to be the one to speak into their life?
 
By getting our emotions stirred up we let our defenses down. Proverbs 25:28 says a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without (defensive) walls. To live by and make decisions by emotion only opens a person to destruction. They are unstable and to those witnessing their life it is plain to see their decisions have no logic, and just don't make sense. 
 
James 1:5-8 warns us that if we are seeking the Lord's wisdom then to do so fully committed - a double minded man is as unstable as the waves of the sea "and let not that man think he will receive anything from the Lord." In other words, if your emotions are like a roller coaster when it comes to seeking God's will, you will miss Him. You won't recognize His leading - you won't get the wisdom from Him you said you wanted. Serving God requires the whole heart, the whole mind, the whole body. 
 
The problem of living by emotions
Because much of church culture equates emotions with the anointing it is no wonder people often equate God's direction in their life with how they feel at that moment. If someone says to you 'Last night I had peace but this morning I'm not sure' - it means they probably had God's peace and direction last night, but in the wee hours of the night and morning doubt and more importantly, fear, crept in and they allowed God's peace to fall into the background - by their choice not by His! Their lack of self-control of their thoughts and feelings leave them confused. 
 
You see this especially in people who are single or unequally yoked in marriage who have no spouse or close friend to speak into their lives, for such a person would round off those rough edges and level out the roller coaster ups and downs of their emotions. Social media is full of people like that and you can tell by the intensity of their focus in what they post, for a person with others who speak into their life would not have posted what they do. 
 
You don't have to feel that way! The concept of taking authority over one's emotions is foreign to so many people, in part because no one ever told them 'you don't have to feel that way', and part because it is also the world's culture to live by emotion. There is a saying often used for children, 'Boredom is a choice'. Boredom is an emotion that comes from lack of focus and activity. Boredom is a choice for if a person 'feels' like it they can get up and find something on which to focus. 
 
Be mature enough to lay aside differences in order to love one another. 
The feelings will come if you do right, but you don't wait for warm and fuzzy before doing right. You just do it. Right emotions follow right thoughts and right decisions. You have in your heart that Jesus loves their sorry selves and you do too for that reason alone perhaps - but He died for them so there is a certain amount of respect and honor and well wishes that goes with Jesus' love for them - once you fall in line with Jesus' love and love them from your spirit to their spirit, perceiving the grace in them, then the rest falls by the way side. They could pick up the phone today and you'd pick up the relationship right where you left off before it went bad - but they are stuck in their backsliding mud and so live in the past, making the past current news to them while you've moved on and continued to grow in Christ. 
 
How to handle such a friend? 
II Timothy 2:23-26: "Foolish and ignorant questions avoid, knowing they only stir up strife. The servant of the Lord must not get caught up in other people's strife, but be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient. In meekness instructing those who oppose themselves if God perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, so that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will."
 
The question I asked is this: What are we to do with people who live by their emotions? 
 
Notice the 4 points I underlined above - "...instructing those who oppose themselves", "repentance to the acknowledging of the truth", "that they may recover themselves", and "...(from) the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will."
 
Our part is to instruct. Period. Build a bridge to them showing them the path to right thinking 
Galatians 6:1-5 says similarly that we are to 'restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted' - in other words, with understanding that we all sin, they are just sinning differently than we do. Paul goes on to say in Galatians 6:2 that if they hear us we are bearing one another's burdens.
 
But he says, if they won't hear us and instead reject our advice and think more highly of themselves than they should, then they must bear their own burden and walk it out, their decision revealing if they were right or wrong. (v3-5). He goes on to say God isn't mocked, He will give to each of us what we deserve or have sown, for that is right. 
 
In his II Timothy 2:23-26 message to Timothy he told him to instruct those who oppose themselves (they are blind to the fact they are fighting against themselves when they are caught up in the emotions of things) but we shouldn't allow ourselves to get caught up in their own strife. Remain emotionally separate even though you feel for them, even though you see where they are headed, even though you want with all your heart to rescue them - once you instruct them they must make the right decisions, they must bring emotions under control. 
 
As the saying goes, the first rule for getting out of a hole is to stop digging. Because they are used to making decisions by emotion some people cannot see they are digging their hole deeper. There is no spiritual rapture to get one out of the bottom of a hole to instantly standing on top of it at ground level, or to fill in the hole. God gives to us what we deserve, and undoing what we did can take years, but it is just. 
 
Notice again what Paul said of them in II Timothy - 'repent to the acknowledging of the truth'. At some point an emotion-led person must calm down, start thinking, and admit their error. It's that simple. No real progress towards emotional health can be made until their is a clear certainty, a revelation, an epiphany they have about their life. 
 
And the worst thing of that person who lives and makes decisions by emotions is that 'they are taken captive by (the devil) at his will.' Again, "that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil." No one can do it for them, they must do it.
 
We'll close it out next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com