Jesus Christ said in John 8:32(NKJV), “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I sometimes wonder if people that have read this awesome verse actually believe it. Many think that Jesus Christ was only talking about what you and I consider to be spiritual information and knowledge. They believe knowledge and information about all other subjects is left out of John 8:32. This isn’t the case. There is only one truth, and when we know it and apply it to any area of our lives, the Master tells us that we will be made free. When we know God’s Will and Word, we can walk in the liberty that Christ won for us when he sacrificed his life on the cross. When we don’t know God’s Will and Word, Hosea 4:6 tells us that we can be destroyed. Many that are struggling emotionally and in various other ways continue to suffer because they either don’t know or will not trust God’s truth.

It wasn’t that long ago that most of society assumed that if you were a believer and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you couldn’t be sad or depressed. Folks just believed that Christians were supposed to walk around with smiles on their faces all the time, and that we were immune to having bad days. It doesn’t take much to realize that this kind of thinking and assumption caused many believers to deny they were hurting. They were suffering emotionally and went deeper into their feelings of isolation and pain because they felt shame about it. They hid their sadness because many of them felt they didn’t have anyone they could talk to or who would understand. The reality is that emotional pain can’t be hidden for long. It will find a way to manifest itself outwardly, and when it does, we’re surprised by how it makes us behave and by the devastation our unresolved pain leaves in its wake.

Being a born-again Christian doesn’t exempt us from emotional pain, but it does require that we comprehend the knowledge God has given us to take authority over our emotional lives. God tells us in Romans 10:9-10(NIV), “9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” In this passage, our loving and powerful Heavenly Father gives us His very plain and clear directive, and it will change our lives for all eternity. He tells us how to become born-again spiritually through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Following Romans 10:9-10 is how we become a child of God and receive the gift of eternal life.

God created us in His image. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created human beings as three-part beings as well. We are spirit, soul, and body. 1Thessalonians 5:23(NIV) says, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You and I have a human spirit, a human soul, and a human body. The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit. Our human spirit is our spirit. Without God’s Spirit living inside our human spirit, you and I cannot have the kind of fellowship and relationship that Heavenly Father wants. God communes with what He is. He placed His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, inside Adam and Eve, so they could have fellowship with Heavenly Father, Spirit to spirit. This is what He desires with us.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s Word, they lost their holiness. When this happened, their connection to God through His Spirit was severed. The Holy Spirit had brought life to their human spirits, but once they disobeyed God, they died spiritually. Our Lord and Savior rescued us from this terrible fate. Because of his life, sacrifice, and resurrection, our human spirit, once dead because of Adam’s and Eve’s sin, can be recreated. This recreation of our human spirit happens through the new birth experience, but here’s the piece of information that slips by many people; the soul is not recreated. The soul is completely and utterly under our self-governance, and if we don’t know how to bring the soul under the submission and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can really get into trouble.

The most important thing that you and I must comprehend is that the work of the soul is not something we do alone. The Holy Spirit that indwells us is our Teacher, Comforter and Guide. He leads us into all truth, and he cannot make a mistake. He is perfect beyond our comprehension of the word. Our job, quite frankly, is to let the Holy Spirit be at work. We must do this with our emotions, thoughts, and words.

Both the mind and heart are parts of the soul. The mind is the thinking center, and the heart is the feeling center. God commands us in Ephesians 4:23 to renew our minds and think like Jesus Christ, and He commands us in Proverbs 4:23 to guard our hearts above all else. To guard is to be careful and watchful about what goes in our hearts and what comes out of them. It can’t be lost on us that changing our hearts and renewing our minds are spiritual disciplines, and spiritual disciplines take practice. They require diligence to keep them up.

God tells us to change the way we think and to change the way we speak because doing this reroutes some things internally, and most importantly, these practices of changing the way we think and speak will cut off opportunities for satan to have entrance into our lives. Heavenly Father commands us to put on the mind of Christ. He tells us in Philippians 4:8(NLT), “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” You and I are commanded to capture every thought that goes against the way God has told us to think, and we are to then discipline that thought and make it obey what Christ says.

When you and I become adamant about changing our thoughts—when we stop thinking and doing the same things we’ve always done, we will give the Holy Spirit the room that he requires to do a work within. This takes time, but we absolutely must begin the process of renewing our minds because the Father has commanded it. We can’t say any ol’ thing just because everyone else speaks and says those things. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and we must be ever so careful to speak life into situations. When we change our attitudes and have confidence in what God says, our emotional struggles will lighten and through God’s Holy Spirit, we will see the light where darkness once was. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

“Don’t Be Ashamed of Emotional Struggles” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!