Feelings Aren't Theology: Why Your Heart Needs God's Word

Key takeaways

• Feelings are real, and they still can't settle what is true. The hosts kept returning to the point that a strong feeling does not tell you what God says.
• A struggle and an excuse are different things. Admitting you are wrestling with sin is where help begins. Using "God knows my heart" to keep going is where it stops.
• Grace speaks to the struggle. It does not give permission to stay where you are.
• The narrow way involves cutting things off. Pruning is how God keeps a branch from killing the tree.
• Influence raises the stakes. Anyone who speaks for God to others is held to a higher standard.
• Showing up is not the same as repenting. Church is open to people who are wrestling, and the standard stays the same.

When words and feelings run ahead of the truth

The episode opens with a long stretch of friendly banter, and one thread in it sets up everything that follows. Pastor Adam Mesa explained that a line he had said on an earlier episode, about not owing his wife anything, came out wrong because he was jet lagged after a trip to Japan. What he meant, he said, was that neither spouse should feel on pins and needles about enjoying time with family or friends. He admitted the word choice was wrong even though the idea behind it was sound.

He then told a story about a couple he was counseling before their wedding. Mesa had urged the groom to lead and speak up instead of staying passive. The groom heard it as permission to tell his fiancée that he was the alpha and she had to listen. Mesa said he meant well, but that anyone who tells people to listen because he is in charge has already lost them. A true idea, carried by the wrong spirit, had become a weapon.

Along the way, one host recalled that Chandler had told him in a back-and-forth that feelings aren't facts. The rest of the conversation takes that line seriously.

A public story that raised the question

The hosts spent much of the episode on a man whose public story they had celebrated on earlier episodes. For about nine months he had shared online that he had come to faith and left a former way of life, and he had often said he felt freer and safer. In recent days he had posted a video saying he had been lying to himself and that God accepts him as he now presents himself. He leaned on the greatest commandment and on the idea that God looks at the heart.

The hosts were careful about how they spoke of him. They said this was not a moment of judgment and that anyone can fall back into old struggles. They said they were praying for him, and that they would gladly sit down and talk with him in person. Their concern was the reasoning behind the video, which rests on how he feels and on what he believes God sees in his heart.

Why the heart makes a poor judge

The hosts pointed out that the Bible does not treat the heart as a trustworthy witness.

The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?

(Jeremiah 17:9, WEB)

One host put it from his own experience: "my heart has deceived me so many freaking times." He said the same thing again as the episode closed: "if I trusted my feelings every day, I'd be in trouble." He added that he had feelings that very weekend which would have led him to do foolish things.

The hosts also noticed how often public voices speak for God without opening Scripture. They compared it to someone claiming to know what his father believes without ever having talked with him. If someone says God has told them something because of a feeling and cannot point to a verse, they said, the feeling is doing the work the Bible should be doing. They tied this to a theme from an earlier episode, that people build a picture of God while leaving out the verses that describe him.

Struggling versus excusing

The hosts did not claim that feelings are fake. They said the opposite: a man addicted to cocaine really does feel that it is fine to continue, and someone having an affair may really feel justified. Then one of them drew the line: "Ethics aren't defined by what hurts someone else." For believers, he said, ethics are defined by what God says is ethical.

That is where they separated two postures. One host said it is one thing to say, "I know it's wrong, but I'm struggling." It is another to say, "God knows my heart. Therefore, I could continue to participate." The first person is still listening to the Holy Spirit. The second has found a way to stop.

They pointed to Paul's answer in Romans 6:1-2, where grace is not an excuse to keep sinning. The hosts said those verses address the struggle and do not excuse it. They also widened the circle. Many of us give Jesus most of ourselves and hold back a share, and what we hold back is often pride, selfishness, offense or unforgiveness. One host suggested each of us ask where we are telling the Lord to accept that part of us as it is.

Cut off what blocks the downpour

Mesa drew on the sermon series his church had just finished on hard sayings of Jesus. In John 15:1-2, the vine grower prunes the branches he loves. A diseased branch left in place can kill the whole tree. He said we tend to want to negotiate with Jesus: let me keep this, since I love you and I love people.

He described the narrow way of Matthew 7:13-14 as tight, with little margin, and admitted his own preference for room. "The Christian walk was never about it being easy," he said. The hosts held up Romans 12:2 as the alternative to settling into whatever feels comfortable.

Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

(Romans 12:2, WEB)

They also pointed to Jesus' words in John 17:17, that God sanctifies us by his truth.

Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

(John 17:17, WEB)

Mesa offered a picture for this. Imagine a cloud pouring revelation, intimacy and power, with a large sponge above you made of strongholds, beliefs and selfishness. You only receive droplets and wonder why you feel dry. When people say they are in a dry season, he suggested asking what we have put in the way. The hosts connected this to Matthew 7:21-23, where people who call Jesus Lord and list their works are told he never knew them. One host said the person who thinks he is a believer but is not is the one who excuses his flesh and his sin.

Influence, accountability and the church

Several hosts spoke about what happens when a new believer shares everything online right away. One noted that Mary held what the angel told her in her heart, while we are often quick to broadcast. Someone with influence may think he is only processing in public, but others take his words as a pattern for how to live. The hosts mentioned James on teachers being held to a higher standard, and Jesus' warning about leading little ones astray, which they said applies to young believers who are vulnerable to false teaching.

One host shared a similar experience from his earlier marketing work. A client whose platform grew through talk of God later turned to the belief that everything is God. The host said he rebuked him privately and warned that he would be held accountable. Their advice to anyone in a public struggle is to work it out with pastors and in church, and to keep it off social media until they have.

They were just as clear that church is open to people who are wrestling. Their own church welcomes people on all sides of these questions. But as one host put it, "attendance doesn't equal repentance." Membership and serving require agreeing with what the church teaches on sexuality, marriage and sobriety. Anyone who admits a struggle and asks for someone to walk with them will find company. Mesa described his own approach as sitting across from someone and asking what repentance means to them, what following looks like, and what they hear when a verse is read. The same process applies to a man with an affair or an addiction.

What this means for you

Few of us are in a public spotlight, but each of us has a heart that wants to be told it is fine. The conversation offers a plain test: when you feel strongly about something, ask what the Bible says about it before you ask how it feels. If the two disagree, the feeling is the one that needs correcting.

You can also ask where you have been telling God to accept a part of you that he wants to heal. That might be an addiction or a relationship, or it might be bitterness you have grown comfortable with. Being accepted as you are and being left as you are are different things. Bring the struggle into the light, ask someone to walk with you, and let God prune what you cannot see clearly yourself.