Look to Jesus (Daily Encouragement)
Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight – Proverbs 9:6
In the book of Proverbs, God is showing and guiding us what it is to live a full, true life – in all areas. This includes our emotions which literally impact us all day, every day. While God created emotions good, the effects of the fall has distorted our emotions and how we respond to the world around us. The good news is that Jesus is conforming and renewing us and our emotions into His image. With that being the case, it is helpful to look at Jesus and his emotions to give us a picture of what God is trying to do in us.
What then do we see in the Gospels of the emotional life of Jesus? What does a godly emotional life look like? IT is an inner life of perfect balance, proportion, and control, on the one hand; but also of extensive depth of feeling, on the other hand. (Dane Ortland, Gentle and Lowly)
In Jesus, we see compassion – He looked at the rich young man and “loved him” (Mark 10:21). He was “moved with pity” by the leper (Mark 1:41). He “wept” over Lazarus (John 11:35). He wailed over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). He “sighed” over the deaf man (Mark 7:34). Jesus cared deeply, and he still does today. Wherever the gospel goes, people’s compassion is aroused.
In Jesus, we see godly anger – He was angry at the Pharisees. He “looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). When his own disciples wanted to shoo the children away, he was irritated, and he showed it (Mark 10:14). He was angrily offended at death when he stood at the grave of a friend (John 11:33, 38). He busted up the moneychangers in the temple (John 2:13–17). Jesus never wavered in openly resenting what’s wrong with the world.
In Jesus, we see sorrow – He went beyond anger at wrong. He also suffered for it. The Bible calls him “a man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3). He took our sorrows as his own. He did not have to, but emotional vulnerability is part of the price love is willing to pay. His heart was tormented in his Passion. He said, “Now is my soul troubled” (John 12:27), and “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:37, 38).
In Jesus, we see joy – He endured the cross for a reason, and that reason was “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). The Bible says that Jesus was anointed with “the oil of gladness beyond his companions” (Psalm 45:7). In other words, he was the happiest man of all. The Bible says that “he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). That is high-octane joy. He told us why he came: “. . . that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). He did not come to give us an emotionless ethic; he came to give us the fullness of his joy.*
We need to look to Jesus to see what perfect Godly emotion looks like and the gift of grace in living this perfect life for us. And as we look to Jesus and are moved by Jesus, we are conformed and transformed more and more into his image (2 Corinthians 3:18).
*Adapted from Preaching the Word – Proverbs by Ray Ortlund