The Holy Spirit is seen as the main power behind emotional .
Our destination is the of Christ Jesus, our power to get there is the infilling with and transforming work of the Holy Spirit {“Holy Spirit”}.
Thus the central premise of the book is that “Christians can have their emotional life so that it is transformed to mirror the emotional life of Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit’s power and grace is the key to this process.
Thus means forsaking some emotions and embracing others.
We can take heed of the Spirit’s promptings, or we can discard them in rebellion.
Each of us has mechanisms against change such as rationalization, projection, and denial.
The ability to gratification {XE “delaying gratification”} is fundamental to the development of good character.
God’s plan for our lives is that we become to the {XE image of God/image of Jesus”} image of His Son.
Aspiring to be like Jesus is not a matter of or spiritual ascent.
In fact, the reason we can be like Jesus is because He became very much like .
The goal of biblical EQ is thus not commercial success or social popularity but with God and harmony in Heaven.
If I imitate another human e.g. Billy Graham, I end up not being myself in the end, yet if I imitate Jesus the reverse happens – I find .
No one becoming like Jesus becomes a .
A high EQ will enable you to handle high level social and political issues and be a real influence for good in your society.
The from promising youth to powerful prophet seems to have come at His baptism.
The biological basis of sin is not from the spiritual basis of sin.
The Spirit can deal with the in both its spiritual and biological aspects.
There is always great dignity in the of Jesus Christ.
His unique beliefs led to His unique reaction based on His spiritual perception {XE “spiritual perception”} of the nature of the situation.
The way we with others will depend in large measure on what we believe about what they believe.
Jesus perceives by both His Spirit and the Holy Spirit {XE “Holy Spirit”} who brings these to Him.
The more we think of the power of our own the less we think of God’s Word and the more we think of God’s Word the less we think of the power of our own intellect.
The of the Spirit is not “plain language” but is strangely numinous and symbolic.
Like Jesus the Holy Spirit in us should make us radiant with a healing and gracious so that people sense the love and peace that is in us and know that in our earthen vessels dwells a priceless treasure.
The belief system of these people was different from and more excellent than that of their contemporaries and was in the invisible spiritual reality that they perceived.
These people were distinct but not the least bit mentally ill – they just lived by a different and higher reality which consumed them.
Mature people display resonant love and deep wisdom and emotional .
The carnal Christian {XE “carnal Christian”} is characterized by an astonishing lack of spiritual maturity to the point where they cannot be addressed as people.
Such Christians are characterized by apathy, division, ongoing strife and a very low !
Generally non-believers are neither cooperating with nor the work of the Holy Spirit.
BIBLICAL EQ A Christian Handbook For Emotional Transformation
By John Edmiston
Part 2
In this chapter we will look at as it flows from our stance toward life, our life perspective, how we see things and how we explain the world to ourselves.
A key element in the creation of our is how we explain reality to ourselves.
When someone fails to return a phone call I think they are me.
You are not God – so you don’t have to be for everything.
Cognitive therapists believe that underneath our difficult emotions are that fuel those emotions.
Worship, praise and adoration of Jesus mould the soul into a - shape.
May I also add that I would like to see a greater focus on not just on doctrine, or on ethics or even on good Christian psychology.
Scripture memory {XE “Scripture memory”} is a way we can fix our on the truths of God’s Word until it “sticks” and is memorized.
We can restore a more functional and godly perspective through changing the style {XE “explanatory style”} that builds up our view of events and how life works.
The functions of the spirit are wisdom and perception and knowledge.
Spiritual perception gives us the right spiritual passions such as Jesus beholding Jerusalem and seeing it with his spirit, and reacting with .
Those who are of heart miss seeing the good while those who are spiritually deceived miss seeing the evil.
The point I want you to get is that our emotions can flow from our human spirit which can go out of due to a wide variety of factors (we will see four main ones) and that many of these discordant emotions are grounded in our spiritual perspectives and out of balance perceptions.
This biblical data may be uncomfortable for many from overly backgrounds.
People characterized by folly in their human spirit demonstrate a nature lacking in personal and basic wisdom.
Foolish Christians first need to they have been foolish.
Go slowly and go .
are an unusual topic for a book on emotions, but they are real, and are profoundly emotionally disturbing for those who experience them.
Emotionally curses produce deep confusion and despair and an to think straight.
Slackness in can result in a curse.
Once our perception of life and basic stance on life is relatively OK we can then go on to create a more belief system.
The heart of the natural man can go badly and seriously wrong through adoption of a - and toxic world-view which incorporates ungodly and illogical beliefs.
Jesus was pure in and did not sin even in His thoughts and intentions.
But only the faith-abounding Christians have taken the time and effort to make sure their personal beliefs line up with God’s Word.
By making our formation of beliefs , objective, logical, factual and Scriptural we are more likely to come up with beliefs that work in healthy and constructive ways.
Faith and obedience seem to be to some extent via the emotions.
The connection between what we believe and how we put it into action is through our inner motive po {XE “emotional paralysis” } wer – our .
So inner life plans, vows, self-promises and deep desires retain power in the for as long as they are “active”.
We have to what we believe is possible and impossible, probable and improbable, plausible and implausible.
The limits we place on our life are often really limits we have placed on God through having plausibility structures inherited from the rather than from the Scriptures.
Our family formed our first beliefs and our school and context many of our other beliefs and the church community then added yet more.
To create the right belief structures in our lives we have to try to approximate the conditions the lived under as much as is reasonably possible.
Its impossible to grow very far in God or go on much of an adventure if the atmosphere is emotionally and you do not know when you will next be criticized or hurt.
Generally if you spend more and more time doing things that do work for you they will gradually and naturally push out the elements along the way.
When we do get community right it has tremendous power.
The view of this book is that we do have a spirit and a soul and that the emotions generated there are expressed to the world through the .
The spirit is designed to handle in the spiritual realm directly and intuitively.
is an interesting area in the mind-brain problem because stress is the emotion we experience when our brain cannot cope with all the processing that is required of it.
Our mind can give our brain so many tasks to do that it up.
If the mind can pack the brain too full it can also it.
All of us are under the - of “the flesh”.
Thus the flesh is sum of the demanding impulses of the body that has been disconnected from to God and formed habits and neural pathways inimical to the Spirit.
The mind, which can be (Romans 12: 1,2) can be set on the things of the Spirit and bring life and peace.
A quiet and godly lifestyle can prevent stress and assist our .
Christ-like emotions will flow when the Mind is on the Spirit.
BIBLICAL EQ A CHRISTIAN HANDBOOK FOR EMOTIONAL TRANSFORMATION
By John Edmiston
Part 3
Only re-establishing the connection with God has brought any measure of to the fight-or-flight.
The biblical example of Jesus in the wilderness shows us that even if we think a situation is utterly evil and threatens our health, identity and success (as the wilderness temptations did for Jesus) that we do not need to get upset and become .
is a product of the focused and disciplined mind bringing the whole person into submission to an over-riding ethic or ethos.
Unless you are born again you do not have a nature.
Mastery of fear means setting the mind in the right position.
Fear looks for the problem but faith looks for the .
The mind is the only part of our that we can focus and deploy.
Unless we can correctly emotions in ourselves and others we can make serious mistakes in judgment.
Making judgments about the emotions we experience is often counter-productive and causes us to express some emotions and repress others to conform to a spiritual standard or model that we have been taught in church.
God will not be with you being less than Christ-like.
Departing from our comfortable model of Christianity to a genuine Spirit-filled and Christ-like existence will have a huge and be understood only by other seekers on the same journey.
The strength of Jesus’ emotions flowed from the power of His perceptions and the strength of His .
Your fight or flight may seem like a runaway train but you have the red button and with a bit of effort you can stop it completely.
Repression and live together in some people.
The emotion, which often accompanies spiritual change, has in some cases become .
Powerful spiritual experiences {XE “spiritual experiences”} and dreams and visions are not to be and fled from.
Once we have started mastering ourselves we can more fully engage in relationships with others.
Sociopaths are almost completely unable to emotions in others in any meaningful way.
If you do have a great deal of , do not try counseling others until you have dealt with it.
Fear, paranoia, prejudice and hatred can all flow from allowing false negative of others to grow and become believed.
False are generally not as dangerous as false negatives but can be just as difficult to recognize and deal with.
When we have a fair idea of who we are and who others are we can see past flattery and politeness simply accepting them as normal nonsense.
Once we have identified another person’s we need to know how to respond appropriately.
People who get the social timing {XE “social timing”} of emotional expression wrong can quickly become social .
We need to match our emotional with the strength of the person and the depth of the spiritual needs of those around us.
Thirdly we need to spiritually that which we think the Lord has told us to share especially if it has a high emotional content.
is when you pretend to be experiencing an emotion that you do not really have within you.
We are strengthened with might through His in the inner self.
To “walk in love” means to make it our .
Over time the Spirit produces His in me and I bear love, joy and peace and become humble, meek, patient, gentle, kind and full of self-control.
I am justified by faith and not by any works of the law.
Christ is in His .
The basic job of the Church is not , its loving people.
All I am saying is the Church to God, and get them to release Christ in them to one another, then stand back.
Those who minister should edify the body of Christ into of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
