“Intensified affections and deepened emotions are to be celebrated as long as what awakens, intensifies, and arouses them is biblical truth!”- Understanding Worship by Sam Storms

Within some churches, you will find resistance to emotions or expression. There may even be pressure to restrain yourself from expressing emotions or raising your hands. To shed a tear as you sing may be seen as weakness or shameful. Within other churches, you might feel pressure to raise your hands or dance, and your love for the Lord might be questioned if you don’t seem to be moved like everyone else. As an extreme, some people may believe that they are not truly worshipping if they don’t “feel” something.

Let me first say that emotions are not inherently evil. We are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and just like he can be grieved (Genesis 6:6, Psalm 78:40), jealous (Exodus 20:5, Joshua 24:19), compassionate (Exodus 34:6 Matthew 9:36), pleased (Hebrews 13:16, Psalm 147:11), angry (Romans 5:9, Exodus 34:6), mournful (Jeremiah 9:10, John 11:35), and rejoice (Zephaniah 3:17), we too experience emotions.

One of our worship team values is “Theology before Feeling”. We want to feel, but we want our feelings to be stirred by truth. We should not be afraid of emotions. And yes, sometimes in our house we’ve used the phrase “truth doesn’t care about your feelings”. Sometimes our feelings deceive us, but when we sing about the loving kindness, grace, and mercy of our God, then our hearts overflow with inexpressible joy (1 Peter 1:8). Joy in the Lord is so rich and deep it can’t be fully expressed.

I want to feel deeply, and I want to be moved to express my praises to God passionately. I don’t want to be manipulated to feel a certain way; rather, I want to let the truth of the Gospel and all that God is move me to joy, or tears, or even dancing. I’m praying that the affections of our hearts would be stirred every Sunday as we worship the Lord through song.

See you Sunday!
Pastor Kyle