Highly Recommended Reading

Every one of you gals who read my blog would benefit from reading Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, if you haven't read it already.  This is one of those books that would be beneficial to read through again.  I'm thinking I should read it in another six months to a year, to see how I'm doing.  As I said in a previous post, Nancy lists forty lies.  She  categorized them by what we believe about God, ourselves, sin, marriage, children, emotions, and our circumstances.  Emotions are a big one for us gals.  When Satan can bring us into bondage with our emotions, we then become self-focused and glory is stolen from the One to Whom it rightly belongs.

Here is a snippet about what Nancy says regarding our emotions:

When we wrestle with out-of-control emotions, it is easy to conclude that emotions are inherently sinful or wrong and should be suppressed.  We need to remember that being created in the image of God means we have the capacity to experience and express a variety of emotions.  God exhibits a spectrum of pure emotions, including joy, delight, anger, jealousy, and sorrow.  And He has designed us to be able to feel and express many different emotions in a why that reflects His heart and brings glory to Him.  

The problem is not that we have emotions-they are a gift from God.  The problem is that our emotions (unlike God's) are tainted by the Fall.  The challenge is to let the Spirit of God sanctify us in the realm of our emotions so that they can be expressed in godly ways.  

I know of no tool that the Enemy uses more effectively to lead us as women into bondage than our emotions.  He does so by causing us to believe things about our emotions that just aren't true.  

The Truth is that, due to our fallen condition, our feelings often have little to do with reality.  In many instances, feelings are simply not a reliable gauge of what is actually true.  When we allow them to be tied to our circumstances-which are constantly changing-rather than to the unchangeable realities of God and His Truth, our emotions are prone to fluctuate wildly.  


If we want to walk in freedom, we must realize that our emotions are not necessarily trustworthy and be willing to reject any feelings that are not consistent with the Truth.
 

Good stuff, isn't it?

In each chapter, after Nancy identifies the lies, she then counters the lies with the Truth of God's Word.  The final section of the chapter is called "Making it Personal."  We can get out of Satan's trap by agreeing with God that we have fallen for a lie (or lies), by accepting responsibility, by affirming God's truth, by renewing our minds with God's truth, and then by acting on God's truth.

We spring and fall clean our homes, giving them a deep cleaning.  This book is a good tool in which to do it with ourselves.