FAITH AND FEELING
God’s power is real. It is vital. It can be felt, and the results of it can be seen and felt. I know the Bible says, “the just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4) — but I also know that active faith results in changes that can be seen, felt, and enjoyed.
It is true that Satan can tamper with our feelings if we do not keep our minds and hearts focused upon God, but it is also true that the blessings of God can be felt and enjoyed. “…the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
There was feeling on both sides when the woman reached out in faith and touched Jesus for the need in her life. The Bible says that when the woman touched Christ’s garment “…straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague” (Mark 5:29).
Faith comes first before the feeling. Sometimes we must hold on in faith until we see every symptom eliminated, every circumstance changed, every mountain conquered by the power of God. But let me tell you, that victory can be felt!
Someone said to me, “Brother Conrad, you are an emotional person.” I sure am! You cannot be touched with the feeling of people’s needs, sicknesses, problems, hopelessness, and despair and not be a person of emotion.
It’s funny that people think they can let their emotions run wild in every other phase of life. They can whoop and holler at the ball game or the horse race, they can feel ecstatic over some boy or some girl, but they won’t show emotion in serving God.
Let me tell you that my relationship with God is the deepest emotion I have and it results in feeling deep emotion for the needs of other people. You know one reason I know it is all right to feel emotion? Because God feels emotion. Nobody can love in greater measure than God does:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
It took emotion and love for God to do that. God feels compassion.
He feels anger. He feels jealousy. All these emotions of God are recorded in various places in the Bible, but the one we are concerned with here is that God feels it when someone touches Him and takes His power. He is not some impersonal energy source, say, for instance, like the sun, where you can just go out and soak up a few minutes of sunlight and the sun doesn’t feel it.
He is aware of the need and He is aware of the person whose faith causes them to press through the throng and take of His power to meet that need (Mark 5:30). When someone takes God’s power, it is not diminished. Jesus had just as much virtue left as He had before the woman touched Him, but He felt virtue go out of Him because that virtue is real. It is a real, vital, moving force that is felt not only by us as recipients but by God as the Source Who is tapped for our needs.
Make this declaration:
God is aware of my need. The virtue of His saving, healing, delivering power is a real and vital force that I can tap into to meet my needs. John 3:16-21
