Newton’s 3rd Law of physics states that … for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s not a premise or a theory; it’s law. That means, it’s not a possibility or a maybe; it’s a fact of the physical realm we live in. It happens in every instance of action, 100% of the time. Hit a tree at fast speed and your body will hit the windscreen with the same force unless you’re wearing a seat-belt.
What people fail to understand is that the laws of the physical realm are simply a reflection of the spiritual realm. In the spiritual realm the same law applies. You see it’s application in the physical realm so you can open your spiritual eyes and appreciate how the spiritual realm operates.
The Word of God states in Matthew 7:1 & 2 … judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. The Bible calls it sowing and reaping, but it’s simply the law of equal and opposite reaction.
Sow disrespect, you’ll get disrespected. Sow control over people, you’ll get controlled by a demon, and you won’t know it’s happening. Sow judgment and you’ll fall to the same thing you judged. Sow envy and you’ll reap hatred.
The key element that the Bible encourages is … humility
God gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. God loves a contrite spirit. He hates pride because it’s from hell. Humility comes from heaven. Pride is a characteristic of Satan. Humility is a characteristic of Christ. If you choose pride, God will resist your pride with an equal and opposite reaction … a haughty spirit precedes a fall. If you choose humility, Satan will resist it with an equal and opposite reaction, but the difference is God will be your strength, and the reward will be eternal.
Humility?
To understand humility, you need to understand pride. To walk humbly you need to block pride. Pride is triggered in two ways, and always via feelings. One way is by getting puffed up via good feelings eg. when you get a compliment or complete a task well. A voice says to you that you’re pretty good or clever or capable. The other way is via bad feelings eg. when someone says or does something to hurt your feelings. A voice says to you that it’s not fair or nice. Consequently, you can have puffed-up pride, but even more commonly, you can have hurt pride.
Humility is not an outward appearance; it’s an inner attitude of God’s strength to desist from sucking-up to your hurt pride or puffed-up pride. It’s learnt from recognising that your hurt feelings or good feelings are a satanic trap to get you to be proud so that Satan can apply the law of equal reaction against you.
There’s no way you can avoid good or bad feelings. It’s part of being human. You can pretend to block your feelings with coolness or macho-ness, but they’re still there; they’re just covered over.
Humility doesn’t mean you block your feelings with coolness. It means you feel it and go to God with your hurt and trust His solution, accepting that hurt is part of the solution to learning faith and trust.
Repentance and Forgiveness don’t happen until you give up your feelings
You can’t repent and hold onto hurt feelings, and you can’t forgive and hold onto hurt feelings. You have to give up your feelings and die to what you want before you can repent or forgive.
It’s not fair, I want good feelings
Most people say sorry or forgive so they can get their good feelings back. Their motive is selfish, so it never works. No one likes bad feelings and no one likes looking bad in the eyes of others. So we let the feelings of embarrassment dictate our spirit’s decision and end up suffering the reactions of our action.
Really, underneath all our feelings is just the human desire to be valued and favoured … to be special above others. In other words, we all like feeling superior and hate feeling inferior and we make our judgments based on this motivation. Sadly, that’s the pathway to hell, and God challenges this path with circumstances of life that are designed to re-evaluate the natural law.
Satan uses feelings to trap you in the natural law. Focussing on the feelings of unfairness or superior-ness [superiority is really motivated by past hurts and envy] traps you in the judgment of the person who has hurt you and results in an equal and opposite reaction that Satan can manipulate to make you act like the person you hate.
God’s unpopular pathway to heaven
Jesus made Himself of no reputation and took on Himself the form of a servant. He humbled Himself to the Father’s will and became obedient unto death … Philippians 2:7,8
If you take the pathway least travelled and seek to walk humbly, you’ll cop an equal and opposite reaction from Satan, and God will save you for his eternal kingdom.
If you take the broad way, you’ll still cop an equal and opposite reaction from Satan, and you’ll end up in eternal hell.
No matter what you do you won’t avoid an equal and opposite reaction, but you can choose where you want to end up.
How do you stop your pride?
If you want to stop your pride so you walk the walk of Christ, you have to address your feelings. Pride enters through your feelings. It therefore, must exit through your feelings. You can’t just decide to stop your pride. You first must give up your hurt feelings or your superior feelings. You need to feel yourself do this. Just as you feel the hurt, you must feel the letting go of the hurt. It requires a decision of the mind, but ultimately, it’s actually a decision of the heart.
The mind calculates that the pain feelings or good feelings are part of the walk with Christ and despite the feelings, gives an instruction to one’s heart (spirit) to trust the Lord through the feelings. The heart then lets go the feelings and you feel it go. It doesn’t necessarily resolve the feelings straight away, but an inner confidence of faith is restored that Christ is in control of the situation.
The thief on the cross
The thief on the cross felt his anger and reacted with disrespect and arrogance towards Jesus and demanded He fix his problem. The other thief felt his sin and humbled himself. Humility isn’t based on goodness or badness; it’s feeling your sin and giving up the resistance to defend it.
The problem … you get what you practice
The Word of God declares in 2 Timothy 3, that in the last days people will be incontinent, that is they will not be able to control their feelings because they have allowed themselves to be disrespectful, envious of those that are good, trucebreakers, self-lovers, heady and high-minded, having a form of godliness but never able to come to the truth.
If you practice disrespect, manipulation, defiance, envy, compromise and bending of God’s laws, sexual evil, and don’t keep your word, there’ll be a point of incontinence where you won’t be able to return to self-control even if you want to.
If you don’t control your prideful emotions then you will lose control of your emotions and become incontinent. If you allow your selfish emotions to rule, then you will get an equal and opposite reaction of destruction that will separate you from God.
You need to wear a seatbelt if you don’t want the injury
Macho-ness doesn’t wear a seatbelt; it thinks it’ll never get hurt. Coolness doesn’t wear a seatbelt; it thinks it won’t feel the pain. Fear puts on the seatbelt but fails to buckle it up. It wants the freedom to choose. It looks like it’s wearing the seatbelt so it doesn’t get caught by the police and doesn’t get into trouble.
The seatbelt in the spiritual kingdom is … death. If you’re dead, the feelings are irrelevant. Death is not simple; it requires faith. It has to be learnt; it’s not automatic. It’s daily, not a once for all. It’s learnt through good and bad feelings and by observing the reactions when you fail to stop your actions. You learn it through your failures and your observations. It can only be done after you’ve surrendered to the will of the Father … John 5:30, but, even though the seatbelt restricts your freedoms and wants, the seatbelt means you won’t go through the windscreen; God is in control.
If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his hurt feelings and pain daily and follow Me. For whoever will save his life will lose it but whoever will lose his life for My sake, the same will save it … Luke 9:23,24
Pastor Frank Chisholm
www.e-preacher.org 