THE HUMANITY OF GOD - EMOTIONS

 The Bible tells us that God has a face, eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, lips, voice, chest, back side, arms, legs and even feet.

He has all the same parts that we have, or truth is, we have all the same parts that He has because we were made in His image.

He also walks, talks, loves the smell of certain things, rides in a chariot, sits on a throne, and lives in a place called Heaven.

God is very similar to us in many ways. But what about emotions? Do we share the same emotions? Is God emotional like us?

The Bible does speak of God’s heart.

...the Lord sought out a man after His own heart,…I Samuel 13: 14

We know that He feels things, he grieves, gets angry, experiences sadness, love, joy, compassion, rest, pleasure, and peace.

God has been known to get all in his feelings, especially when it comes to us, his children.

Let’s talk about this today, in the last part of our series on the Humanity of God – His Emotions.

Gods’ depiction as an emotional being in the Bible shows us that he cares for us and he displays that care through real engagement in what we feel, by relating to what we are going through.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8

Ok then Yes, God has emotions, but is he emotional like us?

No of us are immune to feelings. That’s what makes us human.

We have the entire gamut of emotions at our disposal. And quite often we can experience most, if not all of them, in a relatively short period of time.

We can go from anger to sadness, high hopes to deflated despair, victors to victims, anxiety to anticipation, laughter to loss, and everything in between several times over. We never stop Emotioning!

But what about God? He’s not humane like us, He’s spirit.

Our emotions do come from God. He has them, so we have them.

If God were emotionless, we would say he is a heartless monster.

But our human emotions don’t correspond exactly with Gods divine emotions.

God does feel what we feel, however our emotions are but a reflective image of his emotions, since we are made in his image.

Picture looking at yourself in a pond or a stream. Your image has all the same parts and pieces as your unique self. However due to the fluid state of the image your parts are exaggerated. Arms a bit wavier, head shaped differently and so on.

That’s how our emotions differ from Gods. Our emotions are exaggerated. We’re ALL Extra you could say. We’re only a reflective representation of God.

Let’s consider anger. We get angry and God gets angry, but its not the same way.

There’s a huge difference between human anger and divine anger.

When we get angry, we become volatile, unstable, unpredictable, mean, subjective and out of control. Gods anger is rooted in Love, Holiness, and Divine Justice. His anger is predictable, righteous, calculated, Holy, and never malicious.  

Unfortunately, many times we are led by our emotions. When we get angry, we take it too far. Gods anger comes from a place of love and righteousness, ours typically comes from a place of hurt and rejection.

As humans we respond physically to things in a physical world. God is spirit, and thus he responds spiritually.

Our human emotions were formed in human pain, suffering, and challenges so they cloud our judgement when we are led by them.

When someone tries to hurt us, we react emotionally and try to hurt them back. When someone tries to hurt God, he sees they need healing, and loves on them.

God knows that hurt people try to hurt people.

Well why did God give us emotions then? So, we can feel for one another. So, we could feel what others feel, and learn how to be there for each other.

There are many people who believe God feels a certain way about them, and based on that is how they go through life.

Some people feel that God is mad at them because they don’t go to church, or because they don’t give to certain causes, or don’t like people from organized religion or don’t pray or whatever it is.

Then, there are others who feel God loves them the most, because they do go to a church, and they do give to a service group or ministry, and they don’t curse, drink, or smoke, and only watch Christian TV or just listen only to Christian music.

Both groups are guilty of Emotioning. Their emotions have clouded their judgement.

The Bible says that God is immutable, which means that he doesn’t change. In common terms that means God doesn’t have mood swings. He’s not up and then down, hot, and then cold, mad, and then happy. God is always the same.

He’s always perfect in judgment and full of compassion for us all.

Gods’ nature is Love. His love will never diminish for any of us no matter what we do or don’t do.

When all seems unstable, everything is collapsing around you, all your emotions tell you it’s over, you can’t make it, God will be there with His steadfast unmovable love waiting to hold us and stabilize our life.

Not because we’ve been “obedient” or “disobedient” but just because He loves us.

Thank you, Lord!

So, to answer the question Is God emotional like us? No and Thank God he isn’t!

  This is a Thompson Truth