Understanding Flesh vs Feelings
Have you ever made waking up early a goal but then when your alarm goes off your half-asleep brain actually convinces you that you should keep sleeping?
Well… that’s your flesh.
Have you ever lashed out at someone defensively for saying something (even though rationally you knew they weren’t trying to offend you)? Yeah… those are your feelings.
The flesh is what God refers to as our sin nature which often influences how we feel in order to lead us towards sin.
Adam and Eve felt like they deserved to “be like God” and ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Cain felt he deserved acknowledgement from God for a poor offering and then he felt jealousy towards his brother and murdered him.
Bottom line, the flesh inherently leans towards sin so you must intentionally push back and feelings are easily distorted by the flesh so they should never govern your life (outside God’s Truth).
Too many times are we warned in scripture not to be led astray by what we feel, think we know, or by only what we see.
Yet, we still haven’t learned our lesson.
Now don’t misunderstand me, emotions and feelings have a place in our lives for our ultimate good but emotions and feelings are also two different things.
Emotions: immediate natural responses to situations or events (ex. Hearing a startling sound and your body reacting in fear)
Feelings: later interpretations of emotions (ex. Labeling your reaction to the startling noise as fear)
Feelings don’t necessarily have to be sinful, they are simply a way to define our emotions based on what we know (or think we know).
But God says to deny our flesh and guard our hearts because guarding your heart weakens the flesh and denying the flesh protects your heart. You do this by living out God’s Truth.
And denying God’s truth for any reason would mean we are acting in our flesh and most likely through our feelings not our faith.
The ability to have emotions, feelings, thoughts, desires, and free will are all God given but if they aren’t filtered intentionally through God’s Truth then they can easily become instruments of the flesh.
God has emotions. Righteous anger, righteous jealousy, even righteous hatred (He hates sin) and as we are made in His image we too are made to have these emotions.
But of course due to our sinful nature we won’t exercise the emotions in the perfect way God does.
This is why God has instructed us on how to deny our flesh, navigate our emotions, and rule over our feelings in light of scripture.
In this post, I want to address the importance of understanding how feelings impact you spiritually and physically (meaning in the physical realm), as well as talk about the antidote of the flesh which is Truth.
What It Means to Live by Faith, Not by Feelings
To live by Faith means to trust God not just in words but action (which I discuss in my previous post “Practical Applications of Your Faith”).
This means that in order to have faith you have to bypass any feelings that contradict God’s truth.
For example:
If you have an intrusive thought such as, “I’m not good enough.” That would be your feelings leading your flesh and if you were to apply faith to this thought then you would speak God’s truth which is,
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NASB)
This truth can reassure you that even though you feel like you aren’t enough God’s power is made effective through your human weakness (weakness isn’t a bad thing it’s simply a human thing).
Because God is powerful you are powerful because you have God.
Faith over Anxiety:
Another example would be:
Perhaps your anxious or scared of something like passing a test, acing a job interview, accomplishing a new skill, etc. the feeling of anxiety is coming from your flesh so in order to regain control over your heart you must remind yourself of God’s truth which is:
- That you don’t have to carry anxiety alone (Philippians 4:6-7)
- That God is with you and strengthens you (Isaiah 41:10)
- And that you can trust Him with what you cannot control (Proverbs 3:5; 1 Peter 5:7).
Anxiety isn’t wrong, it’s just amplified fear. Fear is a God-given signal but your flesh likes to distort it so it’s less of a signal and more of a state of being. This isn’t very rational, which turns the once helpful fear signal into a very unhelpful anxious state of feeling.
God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear which means not that we don’t feel fear but that we don’t need to let it take over because you can trust that God loves you and He isn’t being careless with your life.
Anxiety is something many people struggle with and I get why because I too have struggled with it (and sometimes still do). However once you truly come to understand the sovereignty of God over your life it really does take away your anxieties and stress.
This one mindset shift helped me do things my anxiety once held me back from — including writing this blog!
Faith in suffering:
Let’s look at Job. Poor old Job. Except he isn’t really one to pity is he?
He had a faith so great the Lord allowed him to be tested.
Some may see that as a bad thing but if you think about it, it should be considered an honor. I mean I don’t know about you but I desire to have a faith that God knows won’t waver in the toughest times.
Job’s whole life imploded and he still gave glory to God!
Now that’s faith — a faith I’d like to grow into someday.
He could have allowed his feelings of grief, anger, confusion, turmoil, anxiety, and pain cloud his perception of God and God’s love but he didn’t. Not even when his knucklehead friends got involved and tried to cloud his faith for him.
And if you think Job wasn’t feeling his feelings then think again! Of course he was! He may have been righteous in God’s sight but he wasn’t perfect. He simply denied his flesh/feelings and focused on the Truth (God).
This comforted him as it’s designed to and it strengthened him as it will.
If you find yourself in times of uncertainty or suffering, dwelling on Truth will surprise you with how it transforms not only your response, but even your circumstances.The suffering literally becomes easier! I can attest to this.
My own experience with Faith amidst suffering:
I personally deal with chronic gut issues and it can come with severe stomach pain especially during my menstrual cycle (it seems to amplify it). Before I started dwelling on God’s Truth that pain was destroying me. The pain is what I focused on and that made it grow and it made my flesh stronger instead of my spirit. But your spirit is how you are saved!
You need to strengthen it in order to be healed by it.
My pain had gotten so overwhelming that I didn’t want to keep living in it. I wasn’t suicidal— I didn’t want to die— I just desperately wanted the suffering to stop. I knew heaven meant peace, and in my exhaustion I started longing for that relief… praying for it.
Then God revealed to me a better way. If I could find the motivation to endure the suffering it would become easier to bear. So he showed me the motivation.
I suffer for Christ!
Not in the belief in Him like many martyrs in the Bible but as an offering to Him.
I understand now the meaning behind , “my yoke is easy and my burden light” God never said there wouldn’t be a yoke! Nor did he ever say we wouldn’t be burdened!
But He Promised that it would be easy and light!
I’ve personally experienced this promise being fulfilled and I want to encourage all of you reading this that if you dwell on Truth you will inevitably experience the same.
God has promised this to you!
Why Feelings Can’t Be the Foundation
There are serious dangers to making your feelings your foundation.
Allowing feelings to dictate your actions, beliefs, decisions, and behaviors causes your life to remain in an unstable state because feelings are flimsy.
They come and go like the wind and aren’t suitable material for building a strong stable life.
Have you ever noticed how the worst times in your life or even just your day are because of unstable feelings?
Maybe you had a good day but one bad thing happened and you allowed negative feelings to ruin the whole day for you.
It’s our responsibility to not allow temporary feelings to become permanent or long-term fixtures in our heart.
The word responsibility means exactly how it sounds: response–ability.
Meaning the way you respond. You can respond poorly or you can respond well.
To be irresponsible is to be unable to respond well.
You have a responsibility to yourself to steward your emotions well. When you do so you align with godly emotions but when you fail to do so you become led by fleshly feelings.
God gives us everything we need to respond well and to recover if at first we respond poorly.
Your emotions are a strength and a blessing from God.
Anger has a time and place, grief is a necessary emotional processing tool, even fear can be helpful as it can keep you safe.
But even emotions are meant to be temporary.
God may have a righteous anger but He isn’t angry all the time. Neither should we be in a state of one emotion all the time.
Emotions are good to revisit though whereas feelings are something only meant to be experienced once.
I’ll explain,
Let’s say someone says something that offends you even though what they said wasn’t offensive.
Your feeling of offense is sudden and shouldn’t linger. If you allow it to linger and dwell on it you increase your chance of acting on said feeling.
You may lash out at the person you felt offended by. This wouldn’t be a rational or constructive response.
The person’s words weren’t meant in offense so a conversation without hostility should be able to be had.
When we dwell on the feeling of offense however we tend to be unable to have a peaceful conversation.
If you had a better response ability then the feeling of offense would be able to come and go with little to no reaction.
Then logic and stable emotional reasoning could filter the person’s words and you’d come to the proper realization that they meant no offense and you don’t need to be offended.
These moments where we react poorly to what others have said or done aren’t us simply experiencing our emotions, they are us living in them. It’s what we’d normally label as “emotional” (though that’s not always an accurate label)
But God is clear,
“the heart is deceitful above all things…”—Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV paraphrased)
Feelings, desires, beliefs, and wills are never something to base all thought and rationale on. God designed them to work together with your spirit to make good decisions or mature your response-ability.
Take children for instance. Many of a child’s response to things seems very irrational to an emotionally regulated adult but to the child their reactions are justified.
When a child loses a toy it is in fact the end of the world to them. Their world.
To someone led by unchecked feelings, an opposing view can feel like that child’s lost toy—sudden, overwhelming, and deeply personal, rather than simply a difference in perspective.
As Christians living limitlessly in Christ it’s our responsibility to have emotional maturity (aka a good response ability).
God gives us wisdom and knowledge freely all we have to do is ask and be willing to listen and learn.
Can Faith and Feelings Coexist?
Yes, but there is more to it than that. Lemme explain…
The definition of “coexist” according to the Oxford English Dictionary is…
“to exist at the same time or in the same place”
So…
Faith and feelings can both exist within you but they can’t both lead at the same time. It’s like a dance. Both partners can’t lead. One has to take the lead for the dance to succeed.
Emotions and feelings aren’t inherently sinful, they are God given as previously mentioned but they can become sinful if you start using them sinfully instead of as just signals.
Emotional signals are helpful for alerting you, but they still need to be filtered through God’s Truth for proper discernment between what aligns with His will and what does not.
God uses our emotions to develop our faith and spiritual power. He uses it to bring us together and he uses it to enact his will.
But when you stop using them as signals and start dwelling on them as “truth”, what God intends as a blessing for you is corrupted by your flesh and turned into a vice.
(You’re not alone, literally everyone does this in some form or another across their entire lifetime)
You want to know how to keep utilizing them as blessings. There are two great examples in the Bible, One far greater than the other.
David in the psalms
And
Jesus in the Gospels
Their portrayals of emotional obedience (which is emotional maturity) can be used to mature and refine your own emotional response ability.
David was depressed and commanded his flesh to obey.
“Why, my soul, are you downcast?… Put your hope in God.”– Psalm 42:11 (NIV paraphrased)
I mean Jesus was sweating blood he was so emotionally distressed and distraught but yet he not only yielded to God’s will in his words he did so also in his actions by seeing it through till completion.
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will but Yours be done.”–Luke 22:42 (NIV)
Your Faith isn’t supposed to make you numb to feelings or emotions, it’s supposed to help stabilize them in Truth.
Practically Choosing Faith Over Feelings
Here are practical ways to choose faith over flesh day to day:
- Pray as posture, not just a reaction.
Make it a consistent practice to pray over everything. Be mindful and present in your spiritual life. You don’t want to become spiritually ignorant or blind. I have been working on praying before I write my blog posts and it’s been super helpful in my discernment of what to say.
- Pause and Pray before responding.
Remember to pause (maybe take a deep breath) and pray before reacting. This is similar to the first step but this is more specifically for those in-the-moment reactionary times when our feelings could threaten to override our faith. Whether in person or online, stop before you speak and pray for a godly response. Also learn it’s ok not to respond. Sometimes that will be the Lord’s directive to you. The truth doesn’t need defending and it’s not your job to argue it into someone’s heart. So, Stop. Breathe. Pray. then Respond (which can sometimes mean walking away without a verbal response).
- Speak Scripture over your situation.
Familiarize yourself with scripture that you can speak over your situation. If you can’t recall a specific verse, it’s okay to look one up. Scripture memorization takes time, and God gives grace in the process and so should you!
- Learn to take the time to process your emotions.
Another good way to work out emotions could be to start journaling them (if you aren’t a writer you could try voice logs). Write out those feelings before making spiritual conclusions or decisions. (This is a great one for when you are Bible studying too)
- Seek Wise, Biblical counsel.
Talk it out with a trusted believer. I seek counsel with my parents and sometimes my sister or look things up on trusted biblical sources (like gotquestions.org). Seeking biblical counsel is something we are told to do by God. Proverbs even mentions being a fool for not seeking wise counsel.
- Act On Truth Anyway!
This is a hard one for most but even if those feelings are screaming at you, remember that the only voice that matters is God’s and it’s not for you to argue that. For example, you may not feel like forgiving someone but scripture says to forgive 77 times over because we were forgiven by God. Follow the Word–not the feelings.
When Feelings Win: Grace Still Covers You
Don’t be discouraged if you still give in to your feelings sometimes. It happens. You’re human.
Giving in to feelings doesn’t undo your salvation—it reveals where God is still sanctifying you.
Jesus wants your heart. He already died for your sins. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Growing in faith—also known as sanctification—is a gradual and imperfect process that requires consistency, perseverance, patience, and dedication, not perfection.
Reflection: The Power of Rooted Faith
When your Faith is rooted in who God is — and not in how you feel — living limitlessly becomes easier and more powerful.
Every day ask yourself something like this:
“What truth must I stand on today, no matter how I feel?”
Faith over flesh doesn’t mean being emotionless or stoic—it means practicing self-control and discernment so that you stand firmly in who God is and what He has said rather than in how you feel or what you want.
Closing Prayer for You:
Lord God,
Thank You for being faithful, loving, and unchanging. Thank You that Your Word is true, and that Your truth never fails even when my feelings lie to me.
Forgive me for the times I’ve let my feelings, my fears, and my flesh lead me instead of You. Forgive me for doubting Your plans, for letting anxiety or discouragement take root, and for trusting how I feel more than what You have promised.
Thank You that You are in control, that nothing surprises You, and that Your plans for me are for my good and Your glory. Help me trust Your timing, Your ways, and Your purpose in every circumstance, even when I don’t understand it.
Father God, please help me to choose faith over fear, hope over worry, and Your Word over my feelings everyday. May my life reflect Your truth, Your love, and Your glory in my every thought, word, and action.
Strengthen me, Lord, to live limitlessly in Christ, trusting You completely, feeling Your presence in every moment, and walking in Your peace.
Amen.
Or check out my previous post, the Practical Application of Your Faith!
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