God's Love Is Whole – Part 2-2 (Heart and Emotion)
God's Love Is Whole – Part 2-2 (Heart and Emotion)
He loves our Spirit, Heart, Emotion, and Body
Psalm 139:13–15 | May 31, 2026
“13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.”
Last week’s message focused on God’s love over our emotions. We learned that our emotions were God’s gifts to us. We learned to embrace our emotions and that we can be honest with our emotions by bringing them fully to God in prayer, through our full range of emotions whether through our trials or through our joys. This week’s message continues our sermon series on God’s love and how it encompasses every part of us, and how we can both understand and express our emotions in healthy ways.
We can learn from the American show Beef how suppressing and how having unregulated emotions can be unhealthy and lead to deep-seated resentment, conflicts, and hidden pain. For example, a wife who returns home exhausted and frustrated vents to her husband about her difficulty day. However, before she could finish her thought, her husband interrupts her and tactlessly advises her to instead focus on writing in her gratitude journal. While he gives a spiritually correct answer, his response lacked empathy and failed to give her space to process or acknowledge the full scope of her emotional experience. This scene shows how even correct answers can become harmful when they dismiss the feelings of others. It replaces our negative emotions and forces an experience of positivity and can lead to losing touch of the richness and full range of emotions given to us by God.
This sermon focuses on highlighting three aspects of our emotions.
We must understand our emotions. We know fully what happens when we lose control of our emotions. Our emotions can consume us when left unchecked. Emotions function like signals. Just like how we receive signals when we are physically injured, our emotions alert us to conditions within our hearts and circumstances around us. Anger can point us to crossed boundaries. Fear may signal threat or loss. Guilt or shame points us towards reflection and repentance. Rather than suppressing our emotions, we should seek to understand where we are emotionally and what our emotions are signaling the status of our heart condition.
We must learn how to express our emotions in a healthy way. While emotions are gifts by God, we are not meant to be controlled by them. Psalm 141:3 reminds us that we need to stay vigilant about our emotions and words as they may bring life or death to someone. Healthy emotional expression is about creating our identity apart from our emotions rather than identifying through emotions. Rather than identifying with an emotional state, we can recognize instead that we are transiently or temporarily affected through our circumstance. Instead of “I am anxious” or “I am depressed,” we can instead voice that “I feel anxious,” “I notice this brings about anxious thoughts.” This creates a healthy separation between our identity and our emotional state. We are encouraged to share our emotions honestly, process our emotions, identify our emotional state, and consider why these emotions are present. Our emotions can signal and alert us to the condition of our heart.
Bring your emotions to God in prayer. Hebrews 4:15-16 reminds us that Jesus is the high priest who sympathizes with our weakness. Jesus is God who came down from spirit to become flesh. God knows us spiritually, physically, and emotionally. God experienced the full range of emotions and the temptations of sin. He knows and experienced our joys and hurts and pains. Because He created our emotion, God is also the first who should hear about our emotions. God invites us with heavy yokes, pains, burdens, and hurts and offers rest and healing.
Matthew 6:25-34 reminds us not to be anxious about tomorrow and life. Is God trivializing our circumstances or experiences? No. God reassures us. God reveals that the source of our anxiety is self-reliance in times of uncertainty. Jesus instead asks and redirects our fears to trust in God. God reassures us in Isaiah 41:10 that we are not alone in our walk. God knows our circumstances and God knows our emotions. Emotions are blessings from God, but they are not our identity. When we understand, express healthily and wisely, and bring our emotion to God, we can experience the full range of emotions as God intended in his good design. Regardless of our circumstances and emotions, we can bring them honestly before God, the God who understands fully and who promises rest, comfort, and healing.
Reflection Questions:
What was your main takeaway from this week’s message?
How do I typically respond to difficult emotions or circumstances?
What emotions have I been experiencing recently, and what might they be signaling about my heart condition or circumstances?
